LIBRARY 

UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 
RIVERSIDE 


VOLLEYS  FROM  A  NON-COMBATANT 


VOLLEYS  FROM  A 
NON-COMBATANT 

BY 

WILLIAM  ROSCOE  THAYER 

n  i 

Author  of 

"The  Life  and  Times  of  Cavour,"  "The  Life  of 

John  Hay,"  "Germany  versus  Civilization" 

"The  Collapse  of  Superman"  Etc. 


"Charge  once  more,  then,  and  be  dumb  ! 
Let  the  victors,  when  they  come,    .    . 
Find  thy  body  by  the  wall" 

— MATTHEW  ARNOLD 


GARDEN  CITY  NEW  YORK 

DOUBLEDAY,  PAGE  &  COMPANY 

1919 


COPYRIGHT,  1917,  I9l8,  1919,  BY 

DOUBLEDAY,  PAGE  &  COMPANY 

ALL  RIGHTS  RESERVED,  INCLUDING  THAT  OF 

TRANSLATION  INTO  FOREIGN  LANGUAGES, 

INCLUDING  THE  SCANDINAVIAN 


COPYRIGHT,  1917,  1918,  BY  THE  COTTIS  PUBLISHING  COMPANY 

COPYRIGHT,  IQl8,  BY  D.  APPLETON  A  COMPANY 
COPYBIGHT,  1917,  1918,  BY  THE  NOXTH  AMERICAN  EEVIEW  PUBLISHING  COMPANY 


To 
CHARLES  DOWNER  HAZEN 

Professor  of  History  in  Columbia  University 
HISTORIAN,    PATRIOT,    FRIEND 


PREFACE 

DEAR  HAZEN  :  I  dedicate  this  little  book  to  you 
because,  if  you  had  not  said  that  you  thought  such 
a  collection  might  be  useful  to  refer  to  hereafter, 
I  should  hardly  have  decided  to  reprint  it.  I  know 
too  well  how  fugitive  such  pieces  must  be,  but  I 
know,  also,  how  grateful  the  historian  is  when  he 
comes  upon  them  and  finds  in  them  the  expression 
of  a  party,  or  it  may,  as  in  this  case,  of  a  mere 
individual,  during  a  great  crisis.  Assuredly,  I 
speak  only  for  myself,  but  perhaps  some  readers 
will  find  in  these  papers,  as  you  do,  certain  symp- 
toms without  a  knowledge  of  which  no  one  can 
hope  to  understand  the  changing  attitude  of 
America  toward  the  Atrocious  War. 

From  the  beginning  of  August,  1914,  when  the 
German  Kaiser  forced  this  war  upon  the  world,  I 
believed  that  it  was  a  contest  in  which  Germany 
strove  to  destroy  Civilization  and  to  substitute 
for  it  the  barbaric  German  Kultur — the  negation 
of  moral  law,  the  system  in  which  the  shameless 
deceit  and  unimagined  cruelty  of  German  selfish- 
ness embodied  themselves.  I  underestimated  the 


viii  PREFACE 

immense  advantage  which  forty  years  of  prepara- 
tion gave  the  Germans  at  the  start.  I  thought  that 
England  and  France  on  the  west  and  Russia  on 
the  east  would  be  able  to  halt  the  Germans  quickly. 
But  the  rapid  retreat  to  the  Marne  and  the  Russian 
rout  at  the  Mazurian  Lakes  showed  me  my  mis- 
take; and  when  the  Germans,  driven  back  by  JofTre 
and  Foch,  dug  in  at  the  Aisne,  I  feared  that  the 
struggle  must  be  long.  But  I  did  not  doubt  then, 
nor  have  I  ever  doubted  since,  what  the  outcome 
would  be.  First:  because  I  do  not  believe  that  the 
Powers  of  Evil  can  root  out  Righteousness  from  the 
world;  and  next,  because,  looking  at  history,  I 
saw  that  every  modern^  attempt  to  dominate  Eu- 
rope— by  the  Spanish  in  the  sixteenth  century, 
by  the  French  under  Louis  XIV  in  the  seventeenth 
century,  and  by  Napoleon  a  hundred  years  ago- 
had  been  foiled  and  shattered  by  England.  So 
England's  part  in  this  war  seemed  to  me  a  very 
cheering  portent. 

The  English  are  often  slow;  they  rather  pride 
themselves  on  their  ability  to  muddle  through: 
compared  with  the  Germans,  they  make  war  like 
amateurs;  but  the  plain  historical  fact  is,  that  they 
have  looked  every  would-be  European  conqueror 
for  the  last  four  hundred  years  squarely  in  the 
eyes,  and  have  seen  him  go  down  before  them. 


PREFACE  ix 

Had  the  conceit  of  William  II  of  Hohenzollern 
not  been  so  colossal  that  it  made  him  appear,  to 
himself,  greater  than  the  anaemic  Gott  whom  he 
claimed  for  partner,  he  would  have  been  very 
careful  not  to  range  England  against  Germany 
in  a  life-or-death  struggle. 

Seeing  that  the  war  was  the  culmination  of  the 
rivalry  between  Democracy  and  Autocracy,  be- 
tween Liberty  and  Bondage,  which  had  been  going 
on  for  more  than  a  century,  I  had  no  doubt  that 
the  United  States  ought  openly  and  at  once  to 
take  their  stand  on  the  side  of  Freedom  and  Jus- 
tice. I  loathed  the  German  propaganda  which 
tried  to  poison  Americans  into  thinking  that  no 
oath,  no  pledge  is  sacred;  that  solemn  treaties  are 
mere  scraps  of  paper;  that,  in  war,  Germans  may 
burn  and  slay,  may  outrage  women,  crucify  men, 
bayonet  children  and  infants,  deport  men  into  in- 
dustrial slavery  and  women  and  girls  into  infamous 
sexual  bondage,  bombard  hospitals,  sink  hospital 
ships  and  merchant  vessels  loaded  with  neutrals 
and  non-combatants,  and  still  expect  to  be  re- 
garded as  men  and  not  as  demons.  For  lack  of 
another  word,  we  call  them  Prussians.  To  prevent 
the  total  pollution  of  our  people  by  the  letting 
loose  of  the  Prussian  moral  sewers — which,  appar- 
ently, no  one  in  authority  did  anything  to  check — 


I  deemed  it  the  duty  of  every  one  of  us  who  saw 
this  danger  and  who  recognized  above  all  our  na- 
tional contribution  to  Freedom,  to  force  the  United 
States  to  join  the  Allies.  Ever  since  we  broke 
with  Germany  in  April,  1917,  our  duty,  it  seemed 
to  me,  was  to  support  the  war  with  might  and  main 
and  to  oppose  at  every  turn  the  votaries  of  Paci- 
fism, Bolshevism,  and  all  forms  under  which  the 
friends  and  agents  of  the  Kaiser  pursued  their  sly 
work  here. 

While  the  topics  discussed  in  these  papers  seem, 
therefore,  somewhat  miscellaneous,  they  have, 
nevertheless,  this  underlying  unity.  I  reprint 
them  in  their  original  form,  except  for  some  neces- 
sary correction  of  type  or  phrase,  because  such 
symptomatic  essays  lose  their  value  if,  on  reprinting, 
they  are  corrected  up  to  date.  Any  one  can  be  a 
prophet  after  the  event.  In  general,  each  paper 
expresses  what  I  felt  to  be  a  need  of  the  time  when 
it  was  written;  for  a  danger  which  must  be  faced, 
must  be  understood  in  order  to  be  crushed.  I  lay 
no  more  claim  to  serenity  than  to  neutrality. 
I  have  noticed  in  this  crisis  that  the  men  who 
boasted  of  being  "impartial,"  were  either  pro- 
German,  or  they  had  no  hearts  to  beat  faster  al- 
though the  fate  of  mankind  hung  in  the  balance. 

To  the  title  "Volleys  from  a  Non-Combatant," 


PREFACE  xi 

I  would  gladly  add  "Unwilling";  because,  as  you 
know,  had  Fate  permitted,  I  should  have  been  an 
active  combatant,  although  far  beyond  the  draft 
age.  That  arbitrary  limit  should  never  shut  out 
any  man,  provided  he  is  robust  physically,  and 
firm  in  health.  Let  us  never  forget  that  age  does 
not  disqualify  Marshal  Foch  who  has  already 
thrice  saved  Civilization  and  is  now  giving  Moloch, 
in  his  Prussian  incarnation,  his  final  quietus. 
Foch  is  nearly  three  score  years  and  ten  old. 

I  never  see  a  battalion  of  our  soldiers  drilling, 
or  marching  along  the  street,  without  envying 
them.  I  never  say  good-bye  to  any  young  friend 
in  uniform  starting  for  France,  without  envying 
him  his  great  opportunity  to  show,  whether  he 
live  or  die,  that  he  is  willing  to  sacrifice  himself  for 
those  supreme  things  without  which  civilized 
men  cannot  live.  But  a  disabling  infirmity  has 
forced  me  into  the  pitiful  ranks  of  the  Unwilling 
Non-Combatants.  Finding  that  I  could  only 
stand  and  wait,  I  was  reduced  to  writing.  Hence 
these  pale  records  of  a  spirit  which  craved  a  differ- 
ent outlet. 

Faithfully  yours, 
WILLIAM  ROSCOE  THAYER. 

Cambridge,  October  25,  1918 


CONTENTS 

FAGS 

Preface vii 

CHAPTER 

I.    The  Collapse  of  Superman     ...  3 

II.    America's  International  Relations    .  44 

III.  Are  the  Hohenzollerns  Doomed  ?      .  67 

IV.  John  Hay's  Policy  of  Anglo-Saxonism  84 
V.    Beware  of  a  Judas  Peace       .     .     .  117 

VI.    Despotism  by  the  Dregs  ....  153 

VII.    Italy's  Great  Service  in  the  War      .  182 

VIII.    John  Hay's  Good  Deed  in  a  Naughty 

World 207 

IX.    Campaigning  for  Dupes:    Are  You 

One? 238 

X.    Out  of  Their  Own  Mouths     ...  263 

XI.     France:  1916 275 

XII.    Let  Foch  Decide! 278 

XIII.  Prussia's  Pewter  Napoleon    .     .     .  280 

XIV.  Italy  and  the  Adriatic:  Peace  Terms  299 


Xlll 


VOLLEYS  FROM  A  NON-COMBATANT 


Volleys  from  a  Non-Combatarit 


THE  COLLAPSE  OF  SUPERMAN1 

A  FEW  years  ago  a  strange  myth  went  up  and 
down  the  world.  We  were  told  that  the 
Germans  were  supermen;  and  as  they  themselves 
said  so,  which  of  us  could  doubt  it  ?  For  the  Ger- 
mans had  once  a  high  reputation  for  scientific 
precision,  and  it  could  not  be  supposed  that  either 
this  or  their  native  modesty  would  permit  them  to 
magnify,  by  even  a  hair's  breadth,  their  virtues 
or  their  attainments. 

If  you  repeat  a  declaration  often  enough,  the 
world  either  dismisses  you  as  a  bore,  or  kills  you 
as  a  fanatic,  or  ends  by  believing  you.  In  one 
way  or  another  it  gets  rid  of  you.  So  the  German 
claim  was  believed  without  a  thorough  sifting  of 
the  evidence. 

If  in  a  company  of  ordinary  men  all  but  one 

JThis  was  printed  in  the  Saturday  Evening  Post,  Philadelphia,  November 
lo,  1917,  under  the  title:  "The  Collapse  of  the  Superman  Myth."  Re- 
printed in  book  form  by  Messrs.  Houghton,  Mifflin  Co.,  Boston,  January 
25,  1918.  Written  in  October,  1916. 

3 


4      VOLLEYS  FROM  A  NON-COMBATANT 

should  shrink  to  Lilliputian  size,  that  one,  simply 
by  keeping  his  natural  proportions,  would  be  a 
giant  among  them.  This  is  what  the  German 
Gullivers  assured  us  had  happened;  and  appear- 
ances seemed  to  confirm  them. 

In  the  course  of  a  generation  the  Germans  had 
surpassed  the  other  nations  in  applying  science  to 
industry.  In  some  commodities  their  brands 
were  the  best;  in  nearly  all  their  average  was  better 
than  that  of  their  competitors.  Though  they 
made  few  of  the  cardinal  discoveries  in  science  or 
in  invention,  they  quickly  caught  up,  and  adapted 
or  improved  the  discoveries  of  others. 

They  organized  a  system  of  education  as  com- 
plete as  that  of  the  Jesuits  and  quite  as  far-reach- 
ing; for  it  took  the  German  child  from  the  time  he 
left  the  kindergarten  and  guided  him  until  he  left 
the  university.  It  developed  his  mental  faculties 
to  work  most  efficiently  according  to  the  com- 
mands of  his  official  masters;  it  taught  him  rever- 
ence for  discipline;  it  revealed  to  him  the  import- 
ance of  patient  labour  on  subjects  which  se'emed 
infinitesimal  or  irrelevant.  During  the  first  three 
quarters  of  the  nineteenth  century  this  German 
education  had  also  scientific  accuracy,  or  truth, 
as  its  aim;  and  it  was  so  fruitful  that  scholars  from 
Europe  and  America  went  to  Germany  to  profit 


THE  COLLAPSE  OF  SUPERMAN  5 

by  it,  while  German  professors  strode  over  the 
earth  investigating,  taking  notes,  and  adorning 
the  landscape  with  their  robust — if  not  always 
Apollonian — figures. 

Greater  than  any  discovery  in  science,  however, 
was  the  German  discovery  that  if  you  have  many 
millions  of  persons  all  trained  by  the  same  method, 
you  can  treat  them  as  you  could  so  many  million 
empty  rifles — you  can  load  each  with  your  favourite 
cartridge  and  aim  it  at  whatever  target  you  choose. 
And  this  is  what  actually  happened.  When  Ger- 
man education  had  reduced,  or  raised,  the  Germans 
to  the  level  of  perfect  machines,  their  master, 
swollen  with  military  ambition  and  with  dynastic 
ends,  came  along  and  loaded  them  for  his  own 
purposes.  In  old  times  every  American  colonist 
kept  his  gun  within  easy  reach,  lest  he  should  need 
it  to  shoot  at  an  unexpected  Indian  or  bear. 
Wonderful  is  it  to  think  that  ten  million  or  more 
Germans — living  flesh-and-blood  Germans — stood 
ready,  like  so  many  mechanical  weapons,  devoid 
of  will,  judgment,  or  choice — empty  barrels — to  be 
loaded  and  fired  in  whatever  direction  their  master 
aimed  them. 

When  the  Germans  saw  that  other  peoples 
lacked  their  own  astonishing  organization,  they 
began  to  feel  contempt  for  them;  and  this  con- 


6      VOLLEYS  FROM  A  NON-COMBATANT 

tempt  reacted  so  as  to  puff  up  their  own  self- 
esteem.  They  drew  the  unsafe  deduction  that 
all  methods  except  theirs  must  be  bad.  Which 
of  us  has  not  had  the  privilege  of  listening  to  the 
German  Gelehrter,  the  sum  of  whose  talk,  lecture,  or 
harangue  has  been:  "What  I  don't  know  isn't 
knowledge"?  And,  in  truth,  is  Gulliver  to  be 
blamed  for  perceiving  that  he  is  a  giant  in  compari- 
son with  the  Lilliputians  around  him?  Gulliver 
had  no  reason  for  suspecting  that  his  eyes  were 
out  of  order;  why  should  the  Germans  suppose  that 
they  were  suffering  from  unbridled  vanity — that 
disease  for  which  no  oculist  has  a  remedy?  If 
they  applied  scientific  tests,  they  got  results  that 
confirmed  them,  for  to  them  science  had  become  a 
mirror  that  reflected  their  own  figures.  Cold 
statistics  proved  that  they  were  beating  their 
competitors  in  industrial  progress;  that  they  had 
the  largest  number  of  available  soldiers  in  propor- 
tion to  population;  that  they  excelled  in  the  de- 
tails of  municipal  government;  that  they  counted 
fewer  illiterates  than  their  neighbours;  and  so  on- 
each  proof  serving  to  stimulate  their  megalomania. 
We  ordinary  mortals,  who  have  never  had  the 
slightest  reason  for  supposing  that  we  are  taller 
than  our  fellows,  must  not  be  too  harsh  toward  the 
Teutons  who  suffered  from  this  illusion.  Each  of 


THE  COLLAPSE  OF  SUPERMAN  7 

us  doubtless  cherishes  his  particular  vanity — 
small,  of  course,  in  keeping  with  his  non-German 
size.  If  we  are  immune  from  megalomania  the 
credit  is  due  to  our  insignificance,  for  that  malady 
attacks  only  the  great;  and  therefore  the  Germans, 
more  than  any  other  people  to-day,  are  likely  to 
catch  it.  In  their  case  it  had  become  epidemic 
by  the  year  1914.  So  far  as  it  appears,  no  single 
German  remained  to  say  then:  "Brethren,  perhaps 
we  are  really  not  so  colossal  as  we  think.  Let  us 
take  a  foreign  yardstick  and  measure  ourselves 
again."  Instead  of  this  the  gospel  of  the  super- 
man was  shouted  into  every  Teutonic  ear.  The 
Prussians  remembered  that  they  had  won  three 
wars,  and  they  knew  that  in  all  the  world  they  had 
the  most  powerful  military  organization,  prepared 
for  use  at  a  moment's  notice.  The  supremacy 
of  German  music,  of  German  education — but  why 
specify? — of  German  everything,  needed  no  dem- 
onstration. Even  peasant  Michel  exulted  in  the 
conviction  that  he  was  a  superpeasant  and  that  he 
enjoyed  the  luxury,  unknown  to  his  class  in  other 
countries,  of  eating  superturnip  and  supersausage. 
Obviously  the  superman  could  not  be  satisfied 
with  the  philosophy,  ethics,  or  religion  by  which 
ordinary  men  lived.  The  giant  must  have  the 
giant's  robe,  not  the  swaddling  clothes  of  an  infant. 


8      VOLLEYS  FROM  A  NON-COMBATANT 

So  the  prophets  of  supermania  devised  a  philo- 
sophical and  ethical  system  which  embodied  its 
ideals,  and  they  created  a  deity  they  called  Gott— 
a  strangely  composite  creature  who,  when  analyzed, 
turns  out  to  be  four  parts  war  god  of  the  Goth-and- 
Vandal  type  and  one  part  Frederick  the  Great. 
The  care  of  Gott  they  confided  to  their  supreme 
superman,  the  Kaiser,  who  had  been  assuring  them 
for  twenty-five  years  that  he  knew  better  than 
any  one  else  what  Gott  wished.  Even  mortals 
admitted  that  it  was  proper  that  the  mere  Al- 
mighty should  be  in  charge  of  the  Almightiest. 
Religion  has  not  been  the  forte  of  the  Pan-German- 
ists.  Listen  to  the  words  of  an  avowed  atheist, 
Professor  Wilhelm  Ostwald,  the  first  of  the  German 
Exchange  Professors  at  Harvard,  whose  incorrig- 
ible Prussian  condescension,  flecked  with  occa- 
sional efforts  at  ursine  affability,  is  still  cheerfully 
remembered  there.  He  said  in  1914:  "In  our 
country,  God  the  Father  is  reserved  for  the  personal 
iise  of  the  Emperor.  In  one  instance  He  was  men- 
tioned in  a  report  of  the  General  Staff,  but  it  is 
to  be  noted  that  He  has  not  appeared  there  a  second 
time."1 

The  epidemic  of  supermania  among  the  Ger- 
mans might  have  been  no  more  than  a  grotesque 

Interview  in  the  Paris  Temps,  November  26,  1914. 


THE  COLLAPSE  OF  SUPERMAN  9 

diversion  in  the  humdrum  of  life — as  when  chil- 
dren at  their  play  make  believe  that  they  are  ogres 
and  giants,  kings  and  emperors — had  it  not  been 
that  the  supermen  were  taught  that  they  must 
prove  their  superiority  by  subduing  or  by  de- 
stroying their  neighbours;  that  war  was  the  normal 
exercise  of  supermen,  the  only  exercise,  in  fact,  by 
which  they  could  prosper.  If  you  tell  a  man  you 
are  a  Hercules  and  he  shakes  his  head  doubtingly, 
you  need  simply  to  kill  him  in  order  to  kill  his 
doubt.  As  long  as  you  let  him  live,  you  will  be 
haunted  by  the  thought  that  there  is  at  least  one 
person  who  does  not  take  you  at  your  own  valua- 
tion. In  civilized  countries,  however,  the  individ- 
ual who  resorts  to  this  simple  means  runs  the  risk 
of  being  tried  and  hanged  for  homicide. 

It  hath  the  primal  eldest  curse  upon  't, 
A  brother's  murder. 

Nevertheless,  when  a  nation  of  supermen  adopt 
the  precedent  of  Cain,  they  expect  either  to  exter- 
minate their  victims  or  so  to  crush  them  that  there 
will  be  no  reprisals.  Cain,  it  should  be  said,  seems 
to  have  been  a  hot-headed  youth  who  killed  his 
brother  in  a  fit  of  anger:  the  German  superman,  on 
the  contrary,  does  nothing  without  premeditation. 
His  Kaiser  having  revealed  to  him  the  inmost  pur- 


io    VOLLEYS  FROM  A  NON-COMBATANT 

poses  of  Gott,  and  German  science  having  con- 
firmed the  Kaiser's  revelations,  the  superman 
puts  them  into  action.  It  is  as  easy  as  pulling  the 
strings  of  a  jumping-] ack. 

Again  let  us  not  be  too  hard  on  the  Germans  for 
becoming  infatuated  with  the  gospel  of  super- 
mania!  Suppose  that  we  Americans  were  told  by 
our  rulers,  statesmen,  prophets,  philosophers,  cap- 
tains of  industry,  drummers,  editors,  parsons,  pro- 
fessors, statisticians,  for  thirty  years  together,  that 
we  are  the  Chosen  People,  could  we  resist  the  flat- 
tering imputation?  Do  we  always  close  our  ears 
when  political  spellbinders  let  loose  the  American 
Eagle  amid  a  whirlwind  of  patriotic  eloquence? 
Probably  not;  and  yet  all  the  spellbinders  in  the 
United  States  could  never  persuade  all  the  Ameri- 
cans to  think  alike  at  any  given  moment.  Therein 
Americans  and  other  civilized  peoples  differ  from 
the  Germans.  But  let  us  not  be  conceited  over 
this;  whatever  credit  there  is  belongs  to  Nature, 
who  made  Yankees  each  with  an  individual  think- 
ing piece  which  secretes  daily  its  necessary  supply 
of  thoughts. 

Nature  delights  in  variety,  however,  and  so  she 
made  Germans  each  with  a  thought  cavity  in  his 
skull — a  cavity  that  remains  empty  unless  the 
agent  of  the  Kaiser,  or  State,  comes  round  every 


THE  COLLAPSE  OF  SUPERMAN          u 

morning  with  canned  thoughts,  which  he  pours 
into  it  just  as  a  housewife  fills  her  lamps  with  oil 
or  a  chauffeur  his  tank  with  gasolene. 

So  much  for  what  we  may  call  the  potential 
superman;  so  much  for  the  estimate  that  the  Ger- 
mans put  upon  themselves  and  caused  even  for- 
eigners to  accept.  Let  us  now  see  how  far  these 
supermen  in  action  have  come  up  to  expectations. 

ii 

AT  THE  end  of  July,  1914,  William  and  his  ad- 
visers— if,  indeed,  he  allows  any  one  to  advise  him 
— believed  that  the  enemies  against  whom  they 
had  long  been  plotting  were  so  unprepared  that  it 
would  be  easy  to  crush  them  by  sudden  attack. 
For  several  weeks  Germany  had  been  making 
such  preparations  for  mobilizing  her  armies  as 
she  could  without  exciting  suspicion.  Naturally, 
at  the  beginning  of  August,  when  the  German 
troops  invaded  France  and  Belgium,  they  took 
the  French  and  Belgian  armies  almost  by  surprise. 
Alone  among  the  forces  of  the  western  Allies  the 
British  fleet  was  mobilized.  The  German  super- 
men swept  through  Belgium  and  northeastern 
France,  outnumbering  the  hastily  assembled  troops 
of  their  adversaries  three  or  four  to  one;  but  even 
this  disparity  in  their  favour  would  not  have  given 


12    VOLLEYS  FROM  A  NON-COMBATANT 

them  their  swift  success  if  it  had  not  been  for  their 
gigantic  howitzers,  which  demolished  fortifications 
supposed  to  be  impregnable. 

So  far  it  appears  that  neither  in  those  early 
combats  nor  later  did  the  German  soldiers  win  in 
open  fight  against  an  equal  number  of  foes.  The 
same  was  true  in  the  war  of  iSyo.1  This  is  a 
strange  record  for  supermen!  A  German  super- 
man, we  might  innocently  think,  ought  to  be  a 
match  for  at  least  three  or  four  French  or  British 
fighters.  It  turned  out,  however,  that  it  was  the 
German  readiness,  the  superior  equipment,  and, 
above  all,  the  surprise,  which  gave  the  Kaiser  his 
immense  and  immediate  advantage.  And  yet 
with  all  these  elements  and  Prussian  prestige— 
which  had  become  a  legend — in  his  favour,  he  was 
not  able  to  achieve  his  purpose.  His  triumphal 
entry  into  Paris — to  celebrate  which,  with  true 
German  thoroughness,  he  struck  a  medal  before 


JIn  1866,  in  the  war  between  Prussia  and  Austria,  the  Prussians  had 
221,000  troops  at  the  decisive  battle  of  Sadowa,  the  Austrians  had  only 
200,000.  In  the  Franco-Prussian  War  of  1870,  the  inequalities  were  still 
greater.  At  Woerth  the  Germans  numbered  84,000,  the  French  39,000. 
At  Gravelotte,  the  Germans  had  205,000,  the  French  39,000.  At  Reichs- 
hofen,  the  Germans  180,000,  the  French  45,000.  At  St.  Privat,  the  Ger- 
mans, 80,000,  the  French  18,000.  At  Sedan  the  Germans  220,000,  the 
French  100,000.  These  figures  pay  a  high  tribute  to  the  German  strategy 
which  always  contrived  to  bring  a  larger  force  than  the  enemy's  into  battle; 
they  do  not,  however,  exalt  the  German  soldier  in  a  man-to-man  contest  with 
foreign  foes. 


THE  COLLAPSE  OF  SUPERMAN          13 

the  war  began — never  took  place.  At  the  end  of 
the  first  week  in  September  the  French,  under 
Manoury,  made  a  sudden  dash  on  the  German 
right,  which  upset  Von  Kluck's  plans  and  so  thor- 
oughly dislocated  the  entire  strategy  of  the  Ger- 
man General  Staff  that  on  September  9th  Foch's 
army  drove  like  a  thunderbolt  through  the  German 
centre,  saved  Paris,  sent  all  the  Kaiser's  forces  in 
full  retreat  eastward  and  northward,  pricked  the 
supermen's  dream  of  world  dominion,  and  saved 
civilization. 

Here  again  we  are  perplexed.  Which  were  the 
supermen — the  German  centre  of  Prussian  Guards 
and  Saxons,  who  crumbled  before  Foch's  French- 
men, or  those  Frenchmen  themselves?  Would  it 
be  correct  to  define  a  German  superman  as  one 
who  cannot  stand  up  against  a  mere  ordinary 
foreign  man?  The  ninety-three  professors  who 
certified  to  the  moral,  not  less  than  to  the  military, 
perfection  of  Germany,  would  dissent  from  this; 
and  yet  how  does  it  profit  you  to  be  a  superman  if 
you  run  before  any  smaller  variety  of  men  ? 

Looking  back,  we  see  that  the  German  occupa- 
tion of  Belgium  and  northeastern  France  was  due 
to  preparation  and  surprise,  and  not  to  any  super- 
human quality;  and  this  is  true  of  all  the  Teutonic 
successes  during  the  first  two  years  of  the  war. 


i4    VOLLEYS  FROM  A  NON-COMBATANT 

The  Germans  invariably  had  either  larger  forces 
or  far  superior  equipment,  or  both.  They  ac- 
complished their  great  drive  into  Russia  at  a  time 
when  the  Russian  supply  of  munitions  was  ex- 
hausted. For  the  Germans  to  sweep  almost  de- 
fenseless masses  of  Russians  before  them  was, 
therefore,  a  scarcely  more  glorious  feat  than  it  was 
for  the  Spaniards  to  put  to  rout  the  Aztecs  with 
their  bows  and  arrows,  or  for  the  heroic  ranchmen 
who  dropped  from  the  fatigue  of  slaughtering 
rabbits  in  a  drive.  Search  where  we  will,  we  find 
nothing  supermannish  in  such  victories. 

Ah,  but  does  not  the  perfect  preparation  indicate 
the  superman?  Let  us  examine.  If  you  had 
spent  your  life,  from  boyhood  up,  using  dumb-bells, 
should  you  expect  to  qualify  as  a  superman  if  in 
a  competition  with  your  neighbours,  who  had  de- 
voted themselves  to  golf  and  tennis  and  yachting, 
you  should  lift  with  ease  the  heaviest  dumb-bell, 
which  the  strongest  of  them  could  not  stir  ?  Hardly. 
Well,  for  fifty  years  the  Prussians  had  made  mili- 
tarism the  chief  business  of  life;  wherever  possible 
they  applied  each  new  invention  to  improving 
their  arms  and  equipment;  they  indulged  in  three 
wars,  which  gave  them  invaluable  practice.  They 
foresaw  that  logistics  would  be  not  less  important 
than  strategy  or  tactics  in  the  conflict  they  were 


THE  COLLAPSE  OF  SUPERMAN          15 

secretly  preparing  for.  Nor  should  we  minimize 
the  stimulating  effect  which  the  knowledge  that  he 
would  be  called  upon  to  serve  in  an  enterprise  for 
the  glory  of  the  Fatherland,  and  with  certain  suc- 
cess in  sight,  produced  on  each  recruit. 

None  of  this  militarist  training  went  on  in  Great 
Britain,  where  the  army  in  peace  time,  composed 
of  volunteers,  numbered  less  than  two  hundredths 
per  cent,  of  the  population,  and  since  the  Crimea 
had  never  faced  a  European  enemy.  France, 
on  the  contrary,  had  been  compelled  by  the  Ger- 
man menace  to  maintain  a  large  armament;  but 
her  purpose  being  defense  and  not  aggression,  she 
conscripted  relatively  fewer  men  than  did  the  Ger- 
mans; and  her  population  numbered  less  than  forty 
millions,  while  Germany's  was  nearly  seventy  mil- 
lions. Her  military  system  was  also  less  efficiently 
carried  out.  Russia,  likewise,  and  Italy  had  con- 
scription and  imitated  German  methods,  but 
without  German  thoroughness. 

It  is  not  unfair  to  say,  accordingly,  that  when 
Germany  sprang  the  test  of  ordeal  by  battle  on  her 
European  neighbours  they  were  scarcely  less  ready 
than  were  the  competitors  of  our  expert  in  dumb- 
bells to  cope  with  him.  To  argue  from  their  ene- 
mies' unpreparedness  that  the  Germans  were 
supermen  would  violate  any  logic  based  on  reason. 


16    VOLLEYS  FROM  A  NON-COMBATANT 

And  here  a  grotesque  conundrum  suggests  itself: 
If  it  took  the  Germans,  by  devoting  their  chief 
attention  to  militarism,  forty  years  to  organize  a 
magnificent  army,  and  if  it  has  taken  the  English, 
a  non-militarist  nation,  two  years  to  organize  an 
army  equal  and  in  some  respects  superior  to  the 
German,  who  are  the  supermen  ? 

Perhaps  I  am  not  deferent  enough  to  the  super- 
man; but  I  deny  that  anything — whether  a  kaiser 
made  of  flesh  and  blood  or  a  Krupp  gun  made  of 
steel — should  be  an  object  of  servile  reverence, 
much  less  of  worship.  If  I  were  hunting  for  a 
superman  I  should  look  for  him  in  someone  who 
achieved  great  victories  against  great  odds.  This 
has  not  been  true  of  the  Germans  in  the  present 
war.  Hindenburg  in  East  Prussia  and  Poland, 
Mackensen  in  Galicia  and  the  Balkans,  Falken- 
hayn  in  Rumania,  and  the  generals  who  led  the 
dash  into  France  and  Belgium — all  had  great  odds 
in  their  favour.  As  soon  as  the  Allies  rose  any- 
where near  to  an  equality  with  them,  the  German 
spectacular  successes  ceased. 

Even  the  fact  that  at  the  beginning  of  the  war 
the  total  available  man  power  of  the  Germans  was 
only  one-half  that  of  the  Allies  does  not  entitle 
them  to  pose  as  supermen,  for  their  geographical 
position  and  the  abundance  of  their  means  of  trans- 


THE  COLLAPSE  OF  SUPERMAN         17 

portation  more  than  doubled — probably  it  trebled 
— their  military  potentiality.  No  other  country 
in  Europe  had  so  fine  a  natural  defense  as  Germany, 
with  Austria  bound  to  her.  The  fringe  of  neutral 
states,  Holland  and  Denmark,  protects  her  from 
attack  by  sea;  the  ridges  of  Alsace  and  Lorraine, 
accessible  only  through  two  or  three  gaps,  which 
have  been  splendidly  fortified,  fend  her  from  French 
invasion  on  the  west;  neutral  Switzerland  serves  as 
a  bulwark  on  the  southwest;  Austria  lies  between 
her  and  Italian  or  Slavic  aggression  on  the  south- 
east; and  her  eastern  frontier,  dotted  with  lakes 
and  marshes,  can  be  reached  by  Russian  invaders 
only  after  they  have  crossed  long  stretches  of 
country.  Five  German  strategic  railways  can  rush 
German  troops  by  the  hundred  thousand  to  pro- 
tect that  frontier  at  any  point  from  the  Russians 
against  one  railway  available  for  carrying  the  Rus- 
sian armies  westward. 

The  girdle  of  neutral  states  which  have  clan- 
destinely furnished  Germany  with  food  and  mili- 
tary staples,  thereby  prolonging  the  war  by  at  least 
a  year,  should  also  be  counted  as  an  immense  help 
to  her.  If  those  states  had  been  integral  parts  of 
Germany  that  help  could  not  have  been  rendered. 
Holland  and  Denmark  would  have  been  blockaded 
from  the  start. 


i8    VOLLEYS  FROM  A  NON-COMBATANT 

To  the  incalculable  advantage  due  to  geography 
must  be  added  that  which  the  Germans  enjoyed 
by  seizing  Belgium  and  northeastern  France — a 
seizure  that  involved  the  breaking  by  the  Germans 
of  solemn  treaties,  and  pilloried  them  as  outlaws 
from  civilization.  We  can  hardly  contend  that 
the  surprise  and  deceit  and  the  outrage  on  morals 
and  humanity  which  were  the  elements  of  their 
western  invasion  can  qualify  them  as  supermen, 
unless  we  agree  that  the  ruffian  who  bludgeons  his 
victim  from  behind  at  night  is  a  superman. 

Instead  of  calling  supermen  the  German  troops 
that  were  shuttled  from  east  to  west  and  from  west 
to  east  in  admirably  appointed  railway  trains  which 
took  along  with  them  artillery,  food,  and  muni- 
tions, I  should  apply  that  term  to  Napoleon's 
Army  of  Italy,  which  marched  on  foot  from  Paris 
to  Venice,  ill-fed,  ill-clothed,  ill-equipped — a  mob, 
rather  than  an  army — led  by  the  "little  puppet 
with  dishevelled  hair,"  and  which  wiped  out  three 
Austrian  armies  of  much  larger  numbers,  com- 
manded by  Austria's  most  renowned  generals. 
Similarly,  was  not  Napoleon's  assembling  of  the 
host  with  which  he  invaded  Russia  in  1812  a  more 
astonishing  task  than  that  of  mobilizing  the  Ger- 
mans in  1914,  or  of  dispatching  them  in  trains  and 
motors  and  trucks  and  lorries  to  any  desired  point  ? 


THE  COLLAPSE  OF  SUPERMAN          19 

Napoleon's  conscripts  footed  it  from  the  Pyrenees, 
or  from  Finisterre,  or  from  Calabria — to  Vilna. 
As  you  are  whirled  at  forty  miles  an  hour  across 
the  American  continent  amid  such  modest  luxury 
as  a  Pullman  car  affords,  if  you  happen  to  think 
of  the  pioneers — thirsty,  weary,  footsore,  shrouded 
in  doubts — who  first  blazed  the  trail  over  the 
prairies  and  the  Rockies  to  the  Pacific,  do  you 
look  down  on  them  as  mere  men?  Do  you  look 
up  to  yourself  as  a  superman? 

With  the  best  intentions  in  the  world,  I  fear  that 
we  must  dismiss  the  superman  myth;  or  at  least 
we  must  so  revise  our  definition  of  superman  that 
it  will  fit  not  those  who  can  do  things  on  a  large 
scale  because  they  have  every  contrivance  at  their 
disposal,  but  those  who  work  marvels  with  a  meagre 
outfit.  Call  Columbus,  in  his  tiny  Santa  Maria 
of  one  hundred  tons  burthen,  a  superman  if  you 
will,  but  not  the  captain  of  a  fifty-thousand-ton 
ocean  liner. 

in 

IN  OUR  glimpses  at  individual  supermen  and  at 
concrete  examples  of  their  acts,  perhaps  we  have 
not  paid  sufficient  respect  to  the  philosophic  theory 
of  the  superman.  The  Germans  assure  us  that 
in  order  to  understand  them,  we  must  think  Ger- 


20    VOLLEYS  FROM  A  NON-COMBATANT 

manly.  They  see  themselves  as  supermen — giants 
among  dwarfs;  but  through  some  regrettable  de- 
fect in  our  vision  we  see  them  as  a  race  of  great 
vigour  and  remarkable  attainments  in  certain  fields 
but  not  at  all  as  demigods  or  even  as  Titans.  The 
notion  that  here  and  there  a  superman  is  born — a 
person  "beyond  good  and  evil,"  who  is  expected 
not  only  not  to  curb  his  appetites  and  passions, 
but  to  prove  his  supermannishness  by  giving 
them  a  free  rein — is  a  very  inebriating  notion  if 
you  are  clever  enough  to  persuade  yourself  and 
your  group  that  you  are  one  of  these  privileged 
creatures. 

The  champions  of  the  philosophy  of  supermania 
lean  heavily  on  biology  to  support  their  creed. 
They  have  been  misled  by  the  phrase  "the  sur- 
vival of  the  fittest."  You  might  infer,  to  hear 
them  buzz,  that  only  the  fittest  survive,  or,  to 
put  it  conversely,  the  fact  that  you  survive  is 
proof  that  you  are  the  "  fittest. "  Possibly  a 
German  complacently  accepts  this  as  a  self- 
evident  truth,  but  most  of  us  non-Germans,  even 
in  our  moods  of  most  inflated  self-esteem,  must 
have  our  doubts  as  to  our  being  the  "fittest." 
Historians  will  recall  many  individuals,  dead 
long  since  in  body  but  living  on  in  spirit,  who 
were  "fitter"  than  any  among  us  to  survive; 


THE  COLLAPSE  OF  SUPERMAN          21 

nay,  were  there  not  many  groups  and  even  periods 
in  the  past  which  our  "fittest"  to-day  cannot 
match  ? 

To  interpret  history  in  this  mechanical  fashion 
is  as  unsafe  as  it  would  be  to  try  to  climb  the  Mat- 
terhorn  by  practising  the  goosestep.  If  the  "sur- 
vival of  the  fittest"  meant  what  the  German  be- 
lievers in  the  phrase  claim,  then  long  before  our 
geological  era  one  species  of  mammals  would  have 
devoured  all  the  others,  and  there  would  be  only 
one  triumphantly  "fittest"  kind  of  bird,  of  insect, 
and  of  fish;  and  long  ago  one  breed  of  men  would 
have  swallowed  up  or  exterminated  all  other 
breeds.  Has  this  happened?  Has  a  tribe  of 
supermen  arisen  to  dominate  the  world  ? 

There  have  been  conquering  races — Assyrians, 
Egyptians,  Macedonians,  Romans,  Teutonic  Bar- 
barians (ancient  and  modern),  Normans,  Arabs, 
Turks,  Spaniards,  Anglo-Saxons,  Frenchmen,  Prus- 
sians— but  it  would  be  difficult  to  discover  the 
quality  common  to  them  all  which  made  each  in 
turn  "fittest."  And  if  we  discovered  it  we  should 
learn  only  what  made  them  military  conquerors. 

But  ability  for  military  conquest  is  only  one 
form  of  "fitness,"  and  not  the  highest.  Marcus 
Aurelius,  for  instance,  would  have  gone  down  be- 
fore one  of  the  brawny  gladiators  in  the  Colosseum; 


22    VOLLEYS  FROM  A  NON-COMBATANT 

or,  to  make  the  point  even  clearer,  say  that  he  had 
succumbed  to  a  lion  in  the  arena.  How  would  his 
fitness  to  survive  compare  with  that  of  the  gladia- 
tor or  the  wild  beast  ?  Over  the  earth  the  common 
fly — musca  domestica — is  more  plentifully  diffused 
than  even  the  Germans;  fear  of  lese-majeste  re- 
strains us  from  making  any  inference  as  to  their 
relative  fitness. 

So  there  are,  it  seems,  different  kinds  of  fitness  to 
survive;  there  are  heights  of  excellence  not  dreamt 
of  by  the  German  General  Staff;  and  there  is  human 
progress  not  to  be  measured  or  attained  by  the 
Prussian  goose-step.  "Fitness  to  survive?"  After 
nearly  eighteen  hundred  years  the  golden  thoughts 
of  Marcus  Aurelius  survive  to-day  in  the  hearts  of 
thousands,  but  the  names  of  the  victorious  gladia- 
tors in  the  Flavian  Amphitheatre  are  forgotten,  as 
those  of  Hindenburg,  Moltke,  and  Mackensen  will 
be  when  other  standards  of  fitness  than  those  of 
slaughter  rule  again.  In  days  of  Frightfulness  like 
the  present  it  gives  solace  to  reflect  that  we  can 
still  hear  Theocritus  singing  his  idyls  among  the 
moonlit  groves,  while  all  the  wicked  tyrants  of 
Syracuse  associated  with  atrocious  crimes  are  mere 
names  or  even  less.  And  if  to-day  we  had  to 
choose  between  preserving  the  art,  literature, 
and  history  of  Athens  and  the  Kultur  of  Germany 


THE  COLLAPSE^OF  SUPERMAN         23 

under  William  II,  can  there  be  any  doubt  as  to 
which  we  should  jettison?  In  blotting  out  the 
Sieges  Alice  we  should  deprive  posterity  of  many 
a  smile,  and  in  throwing  over  the  records  of 
Pan-Germanism  and  Supermania  we  should  deprive 
it  of  proofs  of  otherwise  incredible  racial  halluci- 
nation; but,  after  all,  Treitschke,  Nietzsche,  and 
the  Hohenzollern  Kaiser  are  but  for  a  generation, 
whereas  Thucydides,  Plato,  and  Pericles  are  for 
all  time. 

May  we  not  conclude,  therefore,  that  when  we 
subject  the  superman  to  the  test  of  philosophy,  or 
of  biology,  or  of  history,  they  refuse  to  recognize 
his  claims? 

"We  have  seen  you  before,"  they  say:  "we  have 
watched  your  recurrent  appearance  in  human 
affairs  ever  since  the  time  when  man,  ceasing  to  be 
a  quadruped,  stood  up  on  his  hind  feet.  We 
strongly  suspect,  if  you  will  permit  us  to  say  so, 
that  you  are  really  a  survival  of  the  quadruped, 
or  /ft/raman,  in  the  human  race.  We  admire  your 
adroitness  in  palming  off  infra  as  super,  but  really 
who  are  the  people  whom  you  have  fooled  in  this 
way?  Do  they  stand  on  their  heads,  or  is  their 
eyesight  twisted,  or  do  they  dwell  in  asylums 
for  the  insane,  or  are  they  still  quadrupeds?" 

They  are  none  of  these;  they  are  Germans. 


24    VOLLEYS  FROM  A  NON-COMBATANT 

IV 

AT  THE  outset  of  our  philosophic  inquiry  a 
chilling  question  confronts  us:  How  can  we  know 
that  the  Germans  are  supermen  ?  If  the  attributes 
of  the  superman  are  above  those  of  mere  man, 
what  faculty  has  mere  man  by  which  to  recognize 
them?  For  the  superman  is  not  simply  a  being 
in  whom  the  talents  of  mere  man  are  magnified 
many  times — he  is  a  higher  creation.  We  can 
know  Caesar,  Socrates,  Napoleon,  Emerson,  be- 
cause they,  too,  were  men;  but  how  can  we  know 
the  superman  any  more  than  the  kitten  which 
chases  its  tail  on  the  floor  beside  me  knows  my 
nature  or  my  thoughts  ? 

Perhaps  our  only  way  is  to  assume  that  the 
superman  belongs  to  our  genus  and  to  study  him 
experimentally  as  we  would  any  other  strange 
creature.  So  we  shall  be  able  to  value  him  in 
human  terms,  which  may  or  may  not  coincide 
with  the  value  he  has  set  upon  himself. 

I  remarked  just  now  that  he  does  not  appear 
to  have  excelled  even  in  science  in  those  large  dis- 
coveries, the  product  of  the  creative  imagination, 
which  we  associate  with  superior  minds.  The 
steamboat  was  invented  by  Fulton,  an  American; 
the  locomotive,  applied  to  the  railroad,  by  Stephen- 


THE  COLLAPSE  OF  SUPERMAN         25 

son,  an  Englishman;  the  telegraph,  by  Morse,  an 
American;  wireless  telegraphy,  by  Marconi,  an 
Italian  with  an  Irish  mother;  the  telephone,  by 
Bell,  an  American;  and  when  we  come  to  the  field 
of  war  implements  what  surprise  is  this?  Not 
German  supermen,  but  mere  men  of  other  races 
dreamed,  devised,  and  designed  them.  An  Amer- 
ican named  Holland  put  the  first  submarine  into 
the  water;  he,  too,  invented  the  submarine  tor- 
pedo; Maxim,  another  American,  invented  the 
machine  gun;  two  American  brothers,  the  Wrights, 
set  flying  the  first  practical  airplanes;  Bessemer,  an 
Englishman,  discovered  the  process  for  making 
steel,  without  which  Krupp  guns,  large  or  small, 
would  not  have  existed;  and  nearly  a  century  and  a 
half  ago  a  Frenchman,  Montgolfier,  invented  the 
balloon,  the  principle  of  which  underlies  the 
Zeppelin,  the  dirigible,  and  all  similar  modern 
varieties.  Even  in  the  art  of  war  itself,  it 
was  not  the  Germans  who  introduced  trench 
warfare. 

Not  a  German  in  all  this  list.  The  supermen 
turn  out  to  be  amazingly  lavish  borrowers  of  other 
men's  ideas,  prolific  adapters,  untiring  imitators. 
Among  men  it  is  the  discoverer — and  not  those 
who  follow  him  or  perhaps  improve  upon  him — 
that  is  rated  highest.  Can  the  ranking  be  reversed 


26    VOLLEYS  FROM  A  NON-COMBATANT 

among  supermen?  Among  them  do  the  second- 
rates  stand  higher  than  the  first  ? 

If  we  leave  the  sphere  of  invention  and  enter 
that  of  basic  principles,  we  find  that  no  German, 
but  a  modest  Englishman,  Charles  Darwin,  an- 
nounced the  idea  which  has  been  the  keynote  of 
modern  thought  and  of  modern  science.  Louis 
Pasteur,  a  modest  Frenchman,  demonstrated  the 
true  method  of  biology;  Michael  Faraday,  a  modest 
Englishman,  laid  down  the  laws  which  have  guided 
all  subsequent  students  and  appliers  of  electricity; 
Joseph  Lister,  another  modest  Englishman,  con- 
ferred upon  this  suffering  world  the  boon  of  anti- 
sepsis. 

Our  search  for  indisputable  proof  that  Germans 
have  been  supermen  in  these  many  fields  seems 
barren.  Can  they  have  been  mistaken?  Does 
not  the  giant  know  the  length  of  his  own  belt? 
Who  are  we  to  doubt  or  to  deny?  Is  it  not  pre- 
sumptuous in  moles  to  question  the  magnitude  of 
elephants?  In  fairness  we  must  judge  the  Ger- 
mans by  their  achievements  in  the  activity  which 
they  pronounce  supreme.  That  activity  is  war, 
the  sum  and  crown  of  all  their  ideals  and  talents. 
I  have  hinted,  perhaps  too  audaciously,  that  in  the 
actual  war  the  Germans  have  revealed  none  of 
those  transcendent  qualities  that  must  be,  of 


THE  COLLAPSE  OF  SUPERMAN         27 

course,  the  martial  heritage  of  supermen.  Let  us 
glance  once  more  at  this  matter,  which  is  evidently 
the  final  test  for  our  poor  human  intelligence  of  the 
superman's  claims. 

We  must  never  forget  that  when  the  Kaiser 
forced  his  atrocious  war  upon  the  world  in  August, 
1914,  he  commanded  the  most  stupendous  army 
the  world  had  ever  seen;  in  equipment,  in  drill,  in 
the  speed  of  its  mobilization,  it  had  no  rivals.  It 
swept  on,  apparently  irresistible,  for  thirty-six 
days;  then  Manoury  found  the  crevice  in  the 
German  giant's  armour,  plunged  his  sword  into  it, 
and  the  monster  reeled  backward.  Four  days 
later  it  was  in  full  retreat.  This  is  puzzling  to  the 
plain  common-sense  man.  It  surprised  even  the 
Germans  themselves.  In  the  happy  days  of  Bour- 
bon despotism  in  the  Two  Sicilies,  the  soldiers  were 
given  amulets,  which,  they  were  assured,  would 
render  them  invulnerable  to  the  bullets  of  their 
enemies.  What  must  a  Bourbon  soldier  have 
thought  when  he  was  brought  to  the  ground  by  a 
ball  that  smashed  his  thigh?  The  Kaiser  gave 
his  German  soldiers  similar  amulets — he  told 
them  that  they  were  supermen  and  invincible. 
When  they  were  beaten  at  the  Marne  and  only  by 
their  superior  running  ability  succeeded  in  reaching 
the  Aisne  in  time  to  dig  themselves  in  before  their 


28    VOLLEYS  FROM  A  NON-COMBATANT 

pursuers  came  up  with  them,  were  they  troubled  by 
doubts  as  to  the  validity  of  their  amulets  ?  Being 
Germans,  they  probably  indulged  in  no  surmises, 
for  the  German  soldier  is  trained  not  to  think. 

But  a  few  weeks  later  the  Kaiser,  having  been 
baffled  at  the  Marne,  decided  to  make  a  drive  on 
Calais.  What  could  hinder  him?  There  were  a 
hundred  thousand  British  troops  round  Ypres, 
but  the  Kaiser  had  already  in  a  speech  sneered 
away  General  French's  "contemptible  little  army." 
The  Kaiser  had  been  the  master  strategist  and 
victor  in  the  German  grand  manoeuvres  for 
twenty-five  years,  and  his  verdict  on  military  qual- 
ities must  therefore  be  final.  So  he  sent  half  a 
million  of  his  best  troops  on  their  promenade  to 
Calais;  but  at  Ypres  the  " Contemptibles " — who 
wear  that  as  a  name  of  honour  forever — stood 
their  ground;  they  had  only  rifles  and  small  field 
pieces  to  oppose  the  heavy  artillery  and  the  ma- 
chine guns  of  the  enemy;  they  were  mostly  unused 
to  European  warfare  fighting  against  the  best 
regiments  of  Germany;  they  were  only  Britishers 
while  their  foes  were  Germans.  And  yet  the  "  Con- 
temptibles" held  fast;  many  of  them  died  with  a 
cheer,  but  they  held  fast.  The  flower  of  the  Kai- 
ser's army  never  got  beyond  Ypres,  either  then  or 
in  the  three  years  that  have  followed. 


THE  COLLAPSE  OF  SUPERMAN.        29 

Here  is  another  puzzle  for  the  plain,  common- 
sense  mere  man.  If  one  Britisher  can  check  and 
virtually  defeat  five  Germans,  which  is  the  real 
superman?  Let  us  pray  to  be  "Contemptibles," 
and  let  us  not  begrudge  the  beaten  supermen  their 
Iron  Crosses. 

One  form — is  it  not  the  most  loathsome? — of 
German  mendacity  and  deceit,  is  the  bribery  by 
the  Germans  of  the  armies  of  their  enemies. 
Thus  the  superman  did  not  overcome  the  Russians 
by  superior  military  skill  and  bravery,  but  by 
corrupting  those  Russians — from  the  dweller  in 
the  Imperial  Palace  to  generals,  colonels,  and  mere 
captains — who  had  charge  of  supplying  the  Rus- 
sian armies  with  food,  munition,  and  clothing,  or 
who  led  the  troops.  Russia  was  sold  out  by 
traitors:  the  buyers  were  the  Germans.  So,  too, 
the  regiments  which  started  the  Italian  avalanche 
of  panic  at  Plezzo  had  previously  been  stroked  by 
German  agents.  Here  again  is  a  strange  paradox. 
The  supermen,  who  preach  that  war  is  the  highest 
business  of  life — the  pleasure  which  they  chiefly 
yearn  to  enjoy — instead  of  indulging  themselves 
to  the  full  when  they  can,  buy  off,  paralyze  with 
bribes,  the  foes  who  should  fight  them.  What 
can  this  be  ?  Kultur  ?  Stonewall  Jackson  did 
not  win  Chancellorsville  or  Grant  take  Vicksburg 


3o    VOLLEYS  FROM  A  NON-COMBATANT 

by  bribery.  But  then,  they  were  not  supermen, 
they  were  not  Germans;  they  were  honest,  honour- 
able, and  chivalrous  soldiers,  and  so  were  their 
adversaries. 


EXCEPT  for  the  way  in  which  the  Germans  car- 
ried out  Frightfulness  after  the  war  began,  nothing 
so  startled  the  world  as  their  inability  to  compre- 
hend the  point  of  view  of  other  nations.  They 
were  themselves  astonished  that  anybody  should 
criticize  their  campaign  of  rape,  arson,  and  murder 
in  Belgium  and  France  or  their  disregard  of  sol- 
emn compacts.  "Is  not  war  war?"  they  asked. 
"Is  a  treaty  more  than  a  scrap  of  paper?"  To 
them  it  was  inconceivable  that  Belgium  should 
hold  her  honour  dearer  than  her  safety — that  Eng- 
land should  stand  by  her  pledges — that  France 
should  be  moved  by  an  instinct  deeper  than  that  of 
self-preservation.  The  Germans  had  been  so  long 
in  the  habit  of  assuming  that  the  earth  revolved  on 
a  German  pivot  that  they  took  it  for  granted  that 
all  the  other  Powers  would  accept  without  demur 
the  plea  of  "German  necessity." 

In  ordinary  life  this  trait  is  common  enough; 
but  instead  of  reverently  kneeling  to  those  who 
are  afflicted  by  it  we  pity  them,  recommend  seda- 


THE  COLLAPSE  OF  SUPERMAN          31 

tives  or  a  bag  of  ice  at  the  base  of  the  brain,  and 
meditation  on  the  wisdom  of  humility.  If  now 
we  are  to  believe  that  the  swelled  head  is  the  sign 
of  the  German  superman,  shall  we  not  ask  what  it 
profits  him  ?  If  the  state  of  being  a  superman  de- 
prives him  of  the  power  to  understand  the  thoughts 
and  motives  of  mere  men,  is  he  not  to  be  pitied? 
For  he  lies  at  the  mercy  of  insignificant  creatures, 
who  may  in  a  week  upset  the  plans  he  has  been 
maturing  for  forty  years.  Who  would  wish  to  be 
a  superman  on  those  terms?  An  insignificant 
mere  man  can  fathom  the  German's  psychology 
while  the  German  is  as  nonplussed  as  a  South 
Sea  Islander  before  an  English  Bible. 

I  have  heard  it  argued  that  though  we  must  deny 
to  the  Germans  their  claim,  on  military  grounds, 
of  being  supreme — for  measuring  their  performance 
in  relation  to  their  resources  they  have  fallen  far 
short  of  even  a  mere  man  like  Napoleon,  not  to 
mention  such  ancients  as  Alexander  and  Hannibal 
— yet  in  mendacity  and  deceit  they  have  beaten 
the  world's  record.  Their  spies  burrow  in  all 
lands;  their  cunning  corrodes  every  class  of  society; 
they  have  so  far  forgotten  what  truth  is  that  they 
cannot  fabricate  a  lie  that  looks  enough  like  truth 
to  be  effective. 

Frankly,  the  evidence  is  in  their  favour,  for  they 


32    VOLLEYS  FROM  A  NON-COMBATANT 

have  brought  mendacity  to  a  degree  of  perfection 
that  Metternich  or  Gortchakoff  or  Frederick  the 
Great  himself  would  have  envied.  We  must  go 
back  to  the  Renaissance — to  the  consummate 
Papal  masters  of  craft,  to  Sixtus  IV  or  to  Alexander 
VI,  let  us  say — to  find  their  equals. 

And  yet,  having  admitted  this,  having  accepted 
the  claim  that  they  have  spread  their  spider's  web 
from  Pole  to  Pole,  we  ought  to  point  out  in  the 
name  of  truth — and  truth  must  be  heard  even  when 
lies  are  in  question — that  the  most  extraordinary 
aptitude  for  cunning  and  mendacity  would  not 
entitle  its  possessor  to  pass  for  a  superman.  Lies 
of  all  kinds  are  emitted  like  counterfeit  money  by 
the  lower  grade  of  mere  men,  and  by  degener- 
ates, savages,  and  children.  To  base  the  German 
claim  to  supermania  on  a  lie,  therefore,  may  seem 
to  the  heartless  singularly  appropriate;  but  it 
cannot  be  established.  No  one  argues  that  the 
Renaissance  delinquents  were  supermen.  Or,  if 
we  look  simply  at  the  practical  side,  the  fact 
that  an  American  detective  served  Count  Bern- 
storff,  the  German  Ambassador,  as  valet  for  twenty 
months,  must  always  dispose  of  the  German  super- 
man's claims  to  supremacy  even  in  cunning. 

The  superman,  as  a  member  of  a  superpeople 
which,  according  to  its  prophets,  must  choose 


THE  COLLAPSE  OF  SUPERMAN         33 

between  world  power  and  downfall,  deserves"  our 
heartiest  sympathy.  If  you,  reader,  were  to  be 
suddenly  obsessed  by  the  idea  that  you  must 
go  out  and  whip  everybody  you  met  in  the  street 
or  be  whipped  and  cast  on  to  the  dump,  would  not 
you  be  an  object  of  pity?  Supermania  seems  so 
obsolete  that  it  requires  almost  as  great  an  effort 
of  the  imagination  to  believe  that  it  has  come  to 
life  again  as  that  we  are  in  danger  of  the  resurrec- 
tion of  the  Harpies. 

In  an  insane  asylum  a  patient  had  the  delusion 
that  he  was  Julius  Caesar,  and  his  keepers  humoured 
him — and  all  went  well.  After  a  while  another 
patient  came  who  imagined  himself  Charlemagne. 
He  began  to  rattle  the  imaginary  scabbard  of  an 
imaginary  sword  and  to  strut  imperially;  and  the 
keepers  humoured  him,  too — and  all  went  well. 
That  is  the  common-sense  way  in  which,  outside 
of  Germany,  they  treat  victims  of  supermania. 
Beyond  the  Rhine,  however,  they  prefer  a  different 
regime.  They  say,  "Hail  Caesar!"  or  "Hoch! 
Hoch!  Charlemagne!"  and  they  give  him  a  real 
sword  in  a  real  scabbard,  and  obsequiously  kiss 
the  hem  of  his  garment;  and  so  they  confirm  his  de- 
lusion in  him.  But  presently  the  delusion  reacts 
on  themselves. 

Granted  that  ambition  is  rooted  very  deep  in 


34    VOLLEYS  FROM  A  NON-COMBATANT 

the  human  heart,  its  gratification  in  the  form  of 
dominating  a  conquered  people  has  long  since  lost 
savour  for  civilized  men  and  women.  To  gloat 
over  the  fact  that,  thanks  to  your  superior  force 
you  can  compel  others  to  do  your  bidding  against 
their  will,  allies  you  with  the  earlier  types  of  bar- 
barians who  took  delight  in  making  slaves  of  their 
men,  captives  and  concubines  of  the  women.  That 
is  the  attitude  bred  by  despotism.  Some  of  us 
have  been  so  genuinely  imbued  with  democracy 
that  we  feel  not  merely  aversion  but  shame  at 
the  thought  of  compulsion  derived  by  brute  force, 
and  we  felt  not  elation  but  repugnance  when, 
through  a  cruel  stroke  of  fortune,  several  million 
Filipinos  became  our  "subjects."  Weaklings  that 
we  are,  we  are  unworthy  to  catch  that  form  of 
Supermania  Teutonic  a  furibunda. 

With  all  its  defects,  history  must  at  least  be 
credited  with  one  compensating  virtue — it  shows 
us  that  there  is  nothing  new  under  the  sun.  Amid 
great  calamities  or  horrors  or  despair  wise  Clio 
whispers:  "This  has  happened  before;  worse  than 
this  have  I  seen;  this,  too,  shall  pass  away." 

History  is  not  a  prophet,  but  only  recently  she 
said:  "The  struggle  between  Right  and  Might  is 
eternal.  A  century  and  more  ago  the  gospel  of 
the  rights  of  man,  of  democracy,  was  embodied  in 


THE  COLLAPSE  OF  SUPERMAN          35 

French  armies  which  marched  under  the  command 
of  Napoleon  from  end  to  end  of  Europe,  shaking 
down  thrones  and  institutions.  The  personal 
ambition  of  Napoleon  strove  to  use  this  earth- 
shaking  force  for  his  selfish  ends.  Then  Europe 
rose  and  destroyed  him,  but  Democracy  went 
marching  on." 

VI 

LOVERS  of  fact  cannot  fail  to  be  grateful  to  the 
Germans,  the  self-announced  supermen,  for  their 
complete  demonstration  that  there  are  no  super- 
men. Even  over  here  in  America  it  was  a  little 
annoying  to  harbour  the  suspicion  that  possibly 
the  German  professor,  or  the  editor  of  the  German 
newspaper,  or  the  fellow  who  blew  up  factories 
and  wrecked  trains  and  hid  bombs  in  passenger 
steamers,  being  German,  might  be  a  superman. 
To  Yankee  eyes  the  professor  was  simply  a  sneak, 
oily  and  eely;  the  editor,  one  of  the  brood  that 
Bismarck  called  "reptile";  the  bomber,  a  low 
villain  in  whom  great  cowardice  did  not  preclude 
great  crime.  Our  Yankee  eyes  have  been  justi- 
fied by  the  pricking  of  the  superman  bubble. 
The  Kaiser's  workers  here  are  no  more  and  no 
less  than  our  Yankee  eyes  have  seen  them  to  be — 
curious  types  of  inframen.  whose  portraits,  under 


36    VOLLEYS  FROM  A  NON-COMBATANT 

other  names,  adorn  the  Rogues'  Galleries,  and 
whose  peculiar  activities  are  the  study  of  the 
criminal  pathologists  of  many  nations.  Even 
were  the  Germans  to  win  the  war  the  fact  would 
remain  that  they  are  not  supermen.  The  quali- 
ties they  have  tried  to  win  by  link  them  with  Cali- 
ban— not  with  the  angels. 

The  collapse  of  the  superman  myth  will  bring 
relief,  not  only  to  those  who  accepted  it  on  too 
slight  warrant  and  feared  that  the  German  super- 
men would  overrun  the  world  and  persecute  and 
cretinize  its  inhabitants,  but  it  will  also  relieve 
those  who  saw  that  the  superman  creed,  if  true, 
meant  the  negation  of  whatever  moral  and  spiritual 
ideals  mankind  has  laid  hold  of  in  the  course  of 
its  painful  ascent  from  savagery. 

To  some  of  us  it  seemed  rather  late  in  the  day 
for  any  of  our  contemporaries  to  puff  out  their 
chests  and  say:  "Behold,  we  are  the  Chosen  Peo- 
ple!" And  when  -they  flaunted  before  our  skep- 
tical gaze  their  affidavit  to  that  effect — signed 
by  Professor  Haeckel,  and  Professor  Harnack,  and 
the  Professor  of  Entomology  This  and  the  Pro- 
fessor of  Etymology  That,  and  all  the  other  ninety- 
three  incarnations  of  German  veracity,  and  boot- 
licking— instead  of  being  convinced,  our  irreverent 
minds  began  to  wonder  whether  Haeckel,  Harnack, 


THE  COLLAPSE  OF  SUPERMAN          37 

and  the  rest  had  been  cultivating  their  special 
fields  of  science  with  the  same  disregard  of  fact 
that  they  displayed  in  the  easily  verifiable  theory 
of  the  Superman. 

The  doctrine  of  the  Chosen  People  came  at  an 
early  stage  of  development.  Readers  of  the  Old 
Testament  find  it  tenaciously  held  by  some  of 
the  ancient  Hebrew  tribes  in  Syria.  For  it  to 
reappear  three  thousand  years  later  among  the 
Germans,  whose  Hohenzollern  masters  despised 
Jewry  and  Jews  except  when  they  could  borrow 
money  from  them  or  use  them  as  spies,  seemed  a 
comical  reversion  to  an  outworn  primitive  concept. 
Some  of  its  supporters  disguised  it  a  little  by  cloth- 
ing it  in  modern  scientific  phrase.  We  have  heard 
their  assertions  about  the  "survival  of  the  fittest." 
Others  tell  us  that  there  have  been  only  two  "male" 
races — the  Roman  and  the  German.  The  Romans 
subdued  all  the  "female"  races  of  their  epoch; 
the  German  mission  is  to  bring  all  the  "female" 
races  of  our  time  under  their  subjection.  A  de- 
lightful example  of  unconscious  humour!  Solo- 
mon, the  sovereign  of  the  Chosen  People  in  990 
B.  c.,  possessed  a  thousand  flesh-and-blood  fe- 
males; William  II,  sovereign  of  the  German  chosen 
people  in  1914  A.  D.,  aspired  to  possess  as  many 
"female"  races.  So  would  the  intimations  of 


38    VOLLEYS  FROM  A  NON-COMBATANT 

Holy  Scripture  be  fulfilled  by  the  establishment  of 
a  political  world-harem  at  Berlin. 

The  cult  of  the  superman  could  flourish  only  in  a 
time  and  among  a  people  given  over  to  material- 
ism. The  astonishing  feats  of  the  Germans  were 
the  product,  as  we  saw,  not  of  unusual  genius- 
far  less  of  any  superhuman  faculty — but  of  a 
nation  whose  men,  women,  and  children,  old  and 
young,  had  been  reduced  to  so  complete  a  state  of 
mechanical  obedience  that  they  could  be  directed 
by  a  single  will  just  as  every  cog,  wheel,  belt,  and 
spindle  of  a  factory  is  controlled  by  the  engin- 
eer who  turns  the  power  on  or  off.  You  may  mar- 
vel, if  you  will,  at  the  success  that  those  have  had 
whose  interest  it  was  to  bring  seventy  million 
human  beings  to  the  state  of  machines;  but  when 
you  look  abroad  over  nature  or  over  history  you 
will  come  upon  so  many  examples  of  docility  and 
imitation  that  you  will  perceive  that  these  quali- 
ties belong  to  a  lower  rather  than  to  a  higher  order 
of  intelligence.  Watch  a  flock  of  sheep  scamper- 
ing after  their  bellwether,  or  a  procession  of  cater- 
pillars crawling  in  an  unbroken  line,  one  behind 
the  other,  wherever  the  leader  takes  them.  How 
obedient  they  are!  How  German!  Remember 
such  vast  collective  enterprises  as  the  Crusades, 
in  which  not  merely  one  people  but  all  the  coun- 


THE  COLLAPSE  OF  SUPERMAN          39 

tries  of  Christendom — even  tens  of  thousands  of 
little  children,  so  truly  childish  is  the  German 
frame  of  mind — were  impelled  by  the  same  motive; 
remember  with  what  efficiency  the  Inquisition  did 
its  work  in  Europe  and  America,  and  at  its  height 
yielded  nothing  in  thoroughness  and  in  black  re- 
sults to  the  highest  Prussian  standard.  The  thing 
itself  is  old;  only  this  recent  manifestation  and  the 
names  are  new. 

On  the  teachability  of  the  human  biped  his  prog- 
ress, of  course,  depends.  Civilization  inheres  in 
the  doctrines  he  is  taught  and  in  the  spirit  in  which 
he  uses  them — the  spirit:  for  the  wisest  and  best 
men  have  discerned  in  man  something  invisible, 
intangible,  immaterial,  but  most  real,  to  which 
they  give  this  name.  There  are  two  sorts  of  edu- 
cation: The  one  endeavours  to  liberate  the  spirit; 
the  other  to  train  those  faculties  which  spring 
from  the  physical  nature  of  man.  The  finished 
product  of  the  former  education  is  an  individual 
who  thinks  for  himself  and  wills  for  himself — and 
recognizes  his  moral  responsibility;  that  of  the 
latter  is  a  machine  who  receives  his  thoughts  from 
outside  and  whose  will  and  acts  are  controlled  by  a 
master. 

Submissiveness,  obedience,  docility,  and  all 
other  forms  of  protective  coloration  from  fear,  date 


40    VOLLEYS  FROM  A  NON-COMBATANT 

from  primitive  times,  when  thby  were  the  effects 
produced  by  superior  brute  force  on  the  weak. 
Later,  cunning  in  various  guises  managed  to  share 
the  mastery  with  force.  In  one  way  or  another 
the  weak  were  controlled  through  their  fears;  and, 
however  we  disguise  it,  the  same  is  true  to-day. 

But  certain  aspirations  are  almost  as  instinc- 
tive as  fears,  and  it  is  by  playing  on  these  aspira- 
tions that  the  greatest  workers  of  iniquity — ambi- 
tious war  lords  and  religious  fanatics — have  dis- 
sembled their  purposes  from  the  multitudes  whom 
they  employed  to  do  them.  Patriotism  and  re- 
ligion are  the  commonest,  the  most  effective  of 
these  deceptions.  Either  of  them  has  the  power, 
like  a  terrible  drug,  to  deprive  its  victim  of  his 
normal  human  character.  How  else  explain  the 
pious  edification  with  which  crowds  of  the  "faith- 
ful" witnessed  the  tortures  and  slaying  of  heretics; 
or  the  frenzied  exultation  of  the  spectators  of  the 
orgies  of  the  French  Revolution — worshippers  not 
of  Saint-Dominic  but  of  Saint-Guillotine — for 
whose  patriotic  edification  the  heads  could  not 
drop  fast  enough  into  the  blood-soaked  sawdust? 
An  unlimited  capacity  for  hero-worship — which, 
like  love,  is  blind — shows  itself  early  in  the  devel- 
opment of  the  human  race,  and  has  been  almost 
as  great  a  source  of  evil  as  of  good.  If  you  turn 


THE  COLLAPSE  OF  SUPERMAN          41 

your  hero-worship  inward  to  yourself  the  efforts 
of  all  the  angels  cannot  save  you  from  falling,  like 
the  Germans,  into  the  superman  delusion. 

To  make  men  individuals  and  not  mechanical 
atoms  of  a  mass;  to  call  out  the  spirit  in  them  in- 
stead of  reducing  them  to  machines — that  is  the 
ideal  which  will  forever  overcome  the  German  ideal 
of  the  Chosen  People  composed  of  supermen,  who, 
when  scrutinized,  turn  out  to  be  parts  of  a  gigantic 
mechanism.  I  repeat,  man  is  compounded  of 
matter  and  of  spirit,  and  since  his  creation  there 
has  been  a  perpetual  conflict  between  the  two. 
For  ages  together  matter  seems  to  dominate;  and 
then  spirit  breaks  through,  frees  itself,  and  regen- 
erates the  world.  Under  the  guise  of  the  super- 
man, matter  has  waged  its  latest  war  for  empire, 
and  it  has  been  beaten. 

Should  we  not  be  grateful  to  the  Germans  who 
have  organized  matter  into  the  most  remarkable 
machine  man  has  ever  contrived — a  machine  in 
which  the  human  and  the  material  parts  are  indis- 
tinguishable; a  machine  which  the  oil  of  Kaiser- 
worship  lubricates  and  for  which  the  fuel  of  pa- 
triotism supplies  the  power;  a  machine  which 
represents  the  ultimate  attainment  of  science? 
Having  examined  the  prodigy  can  we  not  refresh 
ourselves  with  the  thought  that  this  is  the  best 


42    VOLLEYS  FROM  A  NON-COMBATANT 

and  the  worst  that  matter,  whose  spokesman  is 
German  science,  can  do?  It  cost  Europe  more 
lives  than  the  present  atrocious  war  will  take, 
to  get  rid  of  the  diabolical  belief  in  witches.  Shall 
we  not  say  that  that  riddance  was  worth  the  price  ? 
Will  not  posterity  declare  that  the  exploding  of  the 
superman  delusion,  and  of  the  giving  over  of  the 
civilized  world  to  German  domination  which  that 
delusion  threatened,  was  also  worth  the  price  ? 

More  than  thirty-five  centuries  ago  the  race 
which  then  inhabited  the  Plain  of  Shinar — the 
Prussians  of  those  times  and  perhaps  their  fore- 
runners— looking  up  at  the  sun  and  stars  and  more 
conversant  with  material  than  with  spiritual  laws, 
thought  that  they  could  build  them  a  tower  by 
which  they  could  mount  to  those  celestial  regions 
and  possess  them.  But  the  Lord,  looking  down 
upon  their  city  and  their  tower,  said:  "Behold,  the 
people  is  one,  and  they  have  all  one  language;  and 
this  they  begin  to  do:  and  now  nothing  will  be 
restrained  from  them  which  they  have  imagined 
to  do.  Go  to,  let  us  go  down,  and  there  confound 
their  language,  that  they  may  not  understand  one 
another's  speech.  So  the  Lord  scattered  them 
abroad  from  thence  upon  the  face  of  all  the  earth  : 
and  they  left  off  to  build  the  city."  The  name  of 
that  tower  was  Babel,  and  never  since  that  time 


THE  COLLAPSE  OF  SUPERMAN         43 

has  the  Lord  given  his  approval  to  supermen  who 
would  conquer  the  earth  in  the  Prussian  spirit. 
The  one  language  which  will  unite  all  the  races  is 
not  the  language  of  Frightfulness — the  utterance  of 
physical  force  and  of  science — but  the  language  of 
Love,  through  which  the  souls  of  men  speak. 

To  us  to-day  who  have  never  had  any  doubts 
as  to  the  relative  position  of  matter  and  spirit, 
and  who  have  never  shared  the  folly  of  thinking 
that  we  or  any  other  people  are  supermen,  the  price 
of  the  Atrocious  War  is  staggering.  But  the  great 
gods  are  infinite,  and  we  can  infer  the  importance 
they  attach  to  this  struggle  by  the  magnitude  of 
the  human  sacrifice  they  have  allowed. 

October,  1917. 


II 

AMERICA'S  INTERNATIONAL  RELATIONS1 

EMERSON  concludes  his  essay  on  "Illusions" 
by  a  noble  passage  in  which  he  describes  how 
a  youth,  entering  upon  life,  his  soul  fired  by  ideals, 
sees  the  gods  in  the  firmament,  every  god  sitting 
in  his  sphere.  "The  young  mortal  enters  the  hall 
of  the  firmament;  there  is  he  alone  with  them  alone, 
they  pouring  on  him  benedictions  and  gifts,  and 
beckoning  him  up  to  their  thrones.  On  the  in- 
stant, and  incessantly,  fall  snow-storms  of  illusions. 
He  fancies  himself  in  a  vast  crowd  which  sways 
this  way  and  that,  and  whose  movement  and  doings 
he  must  obey;  he  fancies  himself  poor,  orphaned, 
insignificant.  The  mad  crowd  drives  him  hither 
and  thither,  now  furiously  commanding  this  thing 
to  be  done,  now  that.  What  is  he  that  he  should 
resist  their  will,  and  think  or  act  for  himself! 
Every  moment  new  changes  and  new  showers  of 
deceptions  to  baffle  and  distract  him.  And  when, 
by  and  by,  for  an  instant,  the  air  clears  and  the 

lln  January,  1917,  the  National  Security  League  held  a  Congress  of  Con- 
structive Patriotism  in  Washington.  By  invitation,  I  delivered  this  address 
on  January  25,  1917. 

44 


INTERNATIONAL  RELATIONS  45 

clouds  lift  a  little,  there  are  the  gods  still  sitting 
around  him  on  their  thrones — alone  with  him 
alone." 

During  the  calamity  of  this  Atrocious  War  how 
many  of  us,  like  the  youth,  have  been  blinded  by  a 
storm  of  doubts  and  of  horrors!  We  had  lived 
so  long  in  a  world  where  we  took  it  for  granted 
that  every  person  in  Christendom  agreed  with 
every  other  in  holding  a  few  principles  of  honour, 
humanity,  and  justice,  that  we  were  amazed  when 
Germany  announced  that  its  standard  was  the 
standard  of  Attila,  that  Moloch  was  its  god  and 
Frightfulness  its  method.  Many  souls  anxiously 
asked  themselves  whether  this  new  invasion  of 
the  Huns  might  not  result  in  the  destruction  of 
our  civilization,  which  we  have  drawn  from  the 
best  of  Judea,  and  Greece,  from  Rome,  Italy, 
France,  Holland,  and  England,  and  from  those 
earlier  Germans,  who,  like  Goethe,  repudiated 
the  barbarian  instincts  of  the  Prussians.  Progress 
does  not  advance  at  a  uniform  rate.  Nations  and 
systems  go  out,  and  nothing  replaces  them.  Just 
as  the  highly  cultivated  Saracens  went  down  before 
the  crude  and  ruthless  Spaniards,  might  it  not  be 
that  our  civilized  nations  must  succumb  before  the 
new  Barbarians,  masters  of  every  material  device 
for  waging  war?  Would  another  Dark  Age,  such 


46    VOLLEYS  FROM  A  NON-COMBATANT 

as  that  which  prevailed  in  Europe  from  the  fourth 
century  to  the  twelfth,  overshadow  the  world? 
What  has  happened  once,  may  happen  again. 

Even  as  we  whisper  this  doubt,  we  see  through 
the  battle  smoke  which  palls  the  firmament  a  rift, 
and  there  sit  the  great  gods  as  of  old  from  everlast- 
ing. There  are  Justice,  Honour,  and  Mercy;  and 
there  is  the  Avenger,  who  exacts  retribution  in 
strange  and  terrible  ways.  Their  august  faces 
look  pityingly  upon  us,  that  we  should  have  so 
little  trust  in  spiritual  reality  as  to  believe  that 
they  could  be  destroyed  by  any  material  agency 
or  by  any  change  in  geographical  frontiers. 

This  is  a  moral  world.  Autocrats  may  tear  up 
the  scrap  of  paper  on  which  the  moral  law  is  writ- 
ten; the  paper  goes,  but  the  law  remains  unscathed. 
So,  when  I  seek  a  cornerstone  on  which  our  inter- 
national relations  should  rest,  I  find  nothing  more 
solid,  nothing  more  durable  than  this— "Right- 
eousness exalteth  a  nation."  Never  in  history  has 
it  been  as  necessary  as  it  is  now  to  repeat  and  still 
to  repeat  this  truth;  for  never  before  have  the 
American  people  been  seduced  to  believe  that 
righteousness  does  not  matter,  that  comfort  and 
money-making,  luxury  and  the  means  to  evade 
moral  obligations,  are  the  proofs  of  national 
prosperity.  For  nations,  as  for  men,  the  moral 


INTERNATIONAL  RELATIONS  47 

consideration — character — is  fundamental.  Woe 
unto  the  leaders  of  a  people  who  beguile  them 
into  preferring  any  material  or  any  other  gain 
to  this. 

In  what  I  have  to  say,  I  assume  this  to  be  essen- 
tial, for  I  cannot  conceive  that  the  United  States 
will  long  count  in  international  diplomacy,  unless 
they  recover  the  moral  prestige  which  politicians 
have  frittered  away  through  cowardice,  self-seeking, 
or  incompetence.  Numbers  will  avail  us  nothing. 
The  larger  the  herd  of  sheep,  the  happier  the  pack 
of  wolves.  With  an  army  of  3,20x5  men,  of  whom 
only  1,100  were  Europeans,  Clive  defeated  68,000 
native  Bengalese  at  Plassy — Plassy,  that  stu- 
pendous battle  which  gave  England  the  Indian 
Empire.  So  Japan,  standing  relatively  as  one  to 
ten  with  China,  smote  China  helpless.  Age  after 
age,  history  shows  similar  examples  of  the  destruc- 
tion of  populous,  enervated  nations,  by  the  few 
sturdy  and  strong. 

Wealth  will  not  help  us !  On  the  contrary,  every 
additional  dollar  is  an  added  incentive  for  the 
rapacity  of  predatory  powers.  Wealth  is  timid. 
Wealth  has  a  dulled  sense  of  honour.  Wealth, 
like  the  goose  that  laid  the  golden  egg,  asks  only 
to  be  left  undisturbed  on  her  nest.  But  the  world 
is  full  of  gunners  eager  for  that  kind  of  game. 


48    VOLLEYS  FROM  A  NON-COMBATANT 

What  was  once  a  matter  of  lifting  cattle,  or  a 
border  foray,  has  now  become  the  chief  business  of 
nations  which  proclaim  themselves  the  final  em- 
bodiment of  human  superiority.  They  lay  their 
plans  forty  years  ahead.  They  establish  a  re- 
ligion to  sanctify  their  project.  They  bend  sci- 
ence and  invention,  industry  and  education  to 
make  everything  ready.  They  rename  their  an- 
cient trade  of  highway  robbery  "patriotism." 
None  but  a  fool  can  suppose  that  they  will  covet 
our  wealth  the  less  because  it  is  enormous,  or 
respect  it  the  more  because  it  is  unprotected. 

Others  here  will  speak  for  military  and  naval 
preparation;  I  urge  a  need  that  precedes  that— 
the  need  of  national  moral  regeneration.  Until 
we  recover  our  national  self-respect,  until  we 
realize  that  as  Americans  we  have  many  sacred 
ideals  which  it  is  our  duty  to  fight  for  and  to  die 
for,  we  shall  never  rank  again  among  the  great 
nations  of  the  world.  I  make  no  specious  claim  to 
neutrality.  Only  a  moral  eunuch  could  be  neutral 
in  the  sense  implied  by  the  malefic  dictum  of  the 
President  of  the  United  States.  I  deny  that  there 
is  no  distinction  between  the  ravisher  and  his  vic- 
tim; between  Germany,  brutalized  by  the  creed  of 
Moloch,  and  France  heroically  defending  herself 
against  the  Teuton  monster.  I  deny  that  a  con- 


INTERNATIONAL  RELATIONS  49 

ii 

flict  in  which  civilization  is  at  stake  does  not  con- 
cern Americans.  If  Freedom,  if  Pity,  if  Human- 
ity do  not  concern  us,  what  does?  Perhaps  some 
future  apologist  will  try  to  excuse  these  and  similar 
doctrines,  which  comprise  the  Wilson  Negations, 
on  the  ground  that  Mr.  Wilson  was  misunderstood. 
I  simply  state  the  fact,  without  comment,  that 
his  words  did  more  than  any  other  single  cause  to 
change  American  public  opinion. 

It  is  largely  because  of  these  Wilsonian  Nega- 
tions of  our  fundamental  beliefs  that  we  are  met 
in  this  Congress;  for  these  negations  have  sifted 
like  a  subtle  poison  into  the  hearts  of  our  country- 
men— distorting  the  vision  in  some,  destroying 
in  others  the  power  to  distinguish  between  good 
and  evil,  causing  many  to  look  unmoved  on  un- 
speakable cruelties,  and  creating  in  most  an  ig- 
noble desire  not  to  be  interrupted  in  their  money- 
making  and  their  pleasures. 

The  first  step  we  must  take  in  every  field  we 
have  marked  out  for  our  work  will  be  to  abolish 
the  evil  growths  which  have  sprung  up  from  such 
seeds.  We  must  repair  the  corroded  moral  fibre  of 
the  nation;  we  must  restore  patriotism;  we  must 
quicken  our  sense  of  moral  obligation  toward  all 
the  world;  we  must  put  an  end  forever  to  the 
damning  implication  that  American  men  are  the 


So    VOLLEYS  FROM  A  NON-COMBATANT 

only  men  on  earth  from  whom  manliness  is  neither 
expected  nor  required. 

I  pass  to  more  specific  concerns. 

First,  there  is  what  I  may  call  the  technique  of 
diplomacy.  This  can  be  executed  only  by  trained 
experts — yet  trained  experts  are  almost  as  rare  as 
nightingales  in  the  State  Department.  Perhaps 
it  is  unavoidable  that  we  should  elect  our  presi- 
dents without  reference  to  their  qualification  in 
international  affairs;  but  there  has  grown  up  the 
indefensible  custom  by  which  the  President  ap- 
points as  Secretary  of  State  his  chief  competitor1 
for  the  nomination.  He  might  with  equal  sense 
appoint  the  man  from  whom  he  had  just  won  a  golf 
match,  or  the  first  red-haired  stranger  he  met  on 
Pennsylvania  Avenue.  To  describe  such  a  custom 
is  to  condemn  it.  Nor  need  I  cite  here  the  humilia- 
tions which  it  has  recently  brought  upon  us. 

Another  requisite  for  the  proper  conduct  of 
diplomacy  is  reticence,  reserve.  Instead  of  this, 
garrulousness  is  the  fashion.  Notes  bulging  with 
literary  style  are  indited  and  hurried  to  the  press, 
almost  before  the  persons  to  whom  they  were  ad- 
dressed can  have  received  them.  The  public  talks 
for  a  day  or  two  about  the  writer's  skill  in  trolling 
phrases,  in  balancing  clause  with  clause,  in  in- 

1  William  Jennings  Bryan. 


INTERNATIONAL  RELATIONS  51 

terspersing  runs  and  cadences,  in  sending  out  ven- 
erable platitudes  decked  with  new  ribbon.  But 
nothing  happens,  and  after  a  while  there  follows 
another  note,  which  may  serve  like  its  predecessor 
as  a  model  to  students  of  English  composition. 

This  is  a  dangerous  breach  of  diplomatic  tech- 
nique. If  you  are  conducting  an  important  business 
transaction,  you  do  not  rush  into  print  about  it 
before  it  is  concluded.  Directors  do  not  choose  a 
man  to  be  president  of  a  great  corporation  because 
he  excels  as  an  essayist.  The  great  traditions 
of  our  diplomacy  do  not  countenance  this.  The 
mightiest  diplomatic  message  ever  sent  by  an 
American  took  less  than  two  lines.  Here  they 
are,  as  written  on  September  5,  1863,  by  Charles 
Francis  Adams,  our  Minister  in  London,  to  Lord 
John  Russell,  the  British  Foreign  Secretary:  "It 
would  be  superfluous  in  me  to  point  out  to  your 
Lordship  that  this  is  war."  Earl  Russell  under- 
stood. He  and  Adams  both  knew  the  language 
which  men  use  when  they  mean  what  they  say  and 
are  not  merely  writing  notes. 

It  is  time  that  the  State  Department  and  the 
White  House  returned  to  practise  diplomacy  ac- 
cording to  our  great  traditions. 

Coming  next  to  the  substance  of  our  foreign 
relations,  we  all  recognize  that  the  Atrocious  War 


52    VOLLEYS  FROM  A  NON-COMBATANT 

has  taught  everybody,  what  has  been  evident  to  a 
few  for  some  time  past,  that  isolation  no  longer 
exists  for  us.  In  December,  1895,  when  President 
Cleveland  sent  his  brusque  message  to  England  on 
the  Venezuela  Boundary,  we  literally  broke  into 
the  arena  of  world  politics.  We  then  advanced 
into  the  Pacific  by  annexing  the  Hawaiian  Islands; 
and  became  involved  in  the  Asiatic  tangle  by  taking 
the  Philippines.  We  planted  ourselves  in  the 
West  Indies  at  Puerto  Rico,  and  when  we  built 
the  Panama  Canal,  we  made  ourselves,  willy-nilly, 
warders  of  the  American  hemisphere. 

I  am  not  discussing  the  wisdom  of  these  moves; 
nor  of  the  Monroe  Doctrine  which,  since  Napoleon 
Ill's  forced  withdrawal  from  Mexico  in  1867,  had 
played  little  part  in  the  popular  imagination  until 
Cleveland's  Venezuela  Message.  Then  the  Doc- 
trine took  on  a  new  edge,  and  European  Powers 
rightly  regarded  it  as  a  challenge,  if  not  as  a  men- 
ace. Few  of  them  probably  dreamed  of  establish- 
ing new  dominions  on  this  side  of  the  Atlantic,  but 
the  mere  fact  of  a  prohibition  which  curtails  their 
future  acts  is  a  grievance.  One  Power,  however, 
was  just  beginning  to  intoxicate  itself  with  visions 
of  a  transoceanic  empire :  Germany  saw  in  Brazil 
the  richest  region  in  the  world  still  unexploited 
by  any  of  the  great  countries.  Brazil  could 


INTERNATIONAL  RELATIONS  53 

house  the  entire  population  of  the  Fatherland,  and 
still  have  room  for  more.  But  the  Monroe  Doc- 
trine declared  that  Germany  should  not  control 
Brazil.  During  several  years,  Emperor  William  II 
strove,  by  secret  intrigue  or  by  open  deeds,  to  dis- 
cover whether  the  United  States  would  defend  the 
Doctrine,  and  finally,  when  in  1902  President 
Roosevelt  informed  him  that  he  must  consent  within 
forty-eight  hours  to  arbitrate  the  Venezuela 
difficulty  or  run  the  risk  of  war,  the  Kaiser  un- 
derstood that  at  least  that  American  Administra- 
tion was  in  earnest.  He  arbitrated. 

Thus  the  Monroe  Doctrine — which  binds  us  to 
prevent  foreign  Powers  from  establishing  a  new 
dominion  in  either  America — and  our  own  acquisi- 
tion of  territory  overseas,  have  destroyed  our  iso- 
lation— that  fact  on  which  much  of  our  earlier 
policy  was  based.  And  now  invention,  which 
makes  it  possible  for  a  European  enemy  to  attack 
us  by  submarine  or  by  aircraft,  deprives  us  also  of 
the  isolation  which  geographical  remoteness  gave. 

Before  we  can  pursue  a  consistent  and  continu- 
ous foreign  policy,  therefore,  we  shall  need  to 
decide  whether  to  cling  to  the  Monroe  Doctrine, 
or  to  let  it  lapse.  How  can  we  enter  into  any 
European  or  Asiatic  combination  which  would 
entitle  us  to  meddle  in  the  affairs  of  Europe  or 


54    VOLLEYS  FROM  A  NON-COMBATANT 

Asia,  so  long  as  we  refuse  to  allow  foreign  nations 
to  interfere,  even  in  matters  which  chiefly  concern 
themselves,  with  any  American  country?  Reci- 
procity is  so  obviously  the  principle  which  should 
govern  civilized  intercourse,  that  we  cannot  go  on 
claiming  universal  privileges  and  conceding  none. 
When  the  war  ends  we  shall  be  an  almost  defense- 
less nation  in  a  world  every  one  of  whose  able- 
bodied  men  is  a  soldier — a  world  little  inclined  to 
respect  a  people  who  wince  at  the  thought  of  suf- 
fering or  sacrifice.  It  may  be  then  that  one  foreign 
nation,  or  several,  may  infringe  on  our  Monroe 
Doctrine  and  may  say,  if  we  remonstrate:  "Well, 
what  are  you  going  to  do  about  it?"  What 
should  we  reply?  What  could  we  do  about  it? 
No  foreign  policy  is  stronger  than  the  physical 
force  it  can  command  to  back  it  up,  in  case  it  is 
put  to  the  test  of  war. 

Thanks  to  the  European  complications  during 
the  past  twenty  years — thanks  also  to  the  protec- 
tion of  the  British  fleet — we  could  flaunt  our  de- 
fiance with  slight  danger  of  being  called  to  defend 
it;  but,  as  there  is  little  likelihood  that  this  immun- 
ity will  serve  us  much  longer,  we  must  determine, 
with  all  the  soberness,  foresight,  and  judgment 
we  possessy  how  much,  if  any,  of  the  Monroe  Doc- 
trine we  will  stand  by. 


INTERNATIONAL  RELATIONS  55 

Interlocked  with  this,  is  the  question  of  our 
joining  in  any  league  to  enforce  peace  after  the 
present  war — a  project  which,  however  we  may 
sympathize  with  it,  presents  many  diplomatic 
difficulties.  There  is  also  the  further  disadvantage, 
so  far  as  we  are  concerned,  that  at  present  our 
ability  to  enforce  anything  is  so  puny,  that  we 
should  be  the  laughing-stock  in  any  league  the 
other  members  of  which  would  have  from  ten  to 
fifty  times  our  quota.  Switzerland  to-day  can 
mobilize  half  a  million  men;  while  the  United  States 
has  not  fifty  thousand  of  similar  quality. 

A  third  matter  is  involved  in  the  settlement  of 
these  two — a  tradition  older  than  the  Monroe 
Doctrine,  and,  owing  to  its  venerable  origin,  not 
lightly  to  be  abandoned.  In  his  Farewell  Address, 
written  in  1796,  Washington  warned  his  country- 
men :  "  'Tis  our  true  policy  to  steer  clear  of  per- 
manent alliances,  with  any  portion  of  the  foreign 
world."  For  120  years  this  warning  has  been  the 
guiding  principle  of  our  statesmen,  irrespective  of 
party;  and  yet  as  Mr.  Beck  has  recently  urged 
with  characteristic  clearness,  the  time  has  come 
when  we  must  consider  whether  our  foreign  policy 
ought  longer  to  be  bound  by  it. 

A  maxim  which,  having  outlived  the  conditions 
to  which  it  originally  applied,  if  preserved  as  a 


56    VOLLEYS  FROM  A  NON-COMBATANT 

fetish  may  do  much  harm;  for  the  effort  to  perpetu- 
ate the  obsolete  phrases  and  ideas  of  creeds  and 
constitutions  blocks  the  spread  of  living  truth;  and 
unless  truth  be  alive,  what  is  it  ?  Now  any  one 
who  reads  Washington's  Farewell  Address  atten- 
tively must  perceive  that  it  consists  of  certain 
broad  restatements  of  the  eighteenth-century  polit- 
ical wisdom  and  of  certain  specific  recommenda- 
tions. He  introduces  his  advice  in  regard  to  "per- 
manent alliances,"  for  instance,  by  the  questions: 
"Why  forego  the  advantage  of  so  peculiar  a  situa- 
tion? Why  quit  our  own  to  stand  upon  foreign 
ground?"  When  we  inquire  what  he  meant  by 
the  "peculiar  situation"  which  was  so  advan- 
tageous to  us,  we  find,  of  course,  that  he  meant  our 
isolation.  It  took  from  four  to  six  weeks  then  for  a 
ship  to  cross  the  Atlantic.  Even  in  Europe  the 
communications  were  so  slow,  and  so  often  inter- 
rupted, that  it  required  the  better  part  of  a  month 
for  news  to  pass  between  London  and  Vienna  or 
Berlin  and  Madrid.  How  difficult,  therefore, 
must  it  have  been  for  the  United  States  to  follow 
the  shifting  combinations  of  war  or  diplomacy 
from  so  great  a  distance ! 

Washington  had  also  another  reason  for  bidding 
his  countrymen  not  to  entangle  themselves  in  the 
European  quarrels.  He  knew  that  the  great  task 


INTERNATIONAL  RELATIONS  57 

for  the  young  American  Republic  was  to  develop 
freely  according  to  its  own  nature — to  become 
thoroughly  American  and  thoroughly  Republican, 
unvitiated  by  foreign  interests  or  examples. 

To-day  the  argument  against  permanent  alli- 
ances, so  far  as  it  is  based  on  geographical  isola- 
tion, has  disappeared.  We  could  not  isolate  our- 
selves if  we  tried.  The  second  argument  has  like- 
wise so  changed  as  to  be  no  longer  valid.  We  do 
not  need  to  go  abroad,  to  run  the  risk  of  being 
vitiated  by  contact  with  foreigners  and  their  ideals; 
for  we  have  adopted  nearly  twenty-five  million 
foreigners  since  1860.  Accordingly,  the  problem 
is  already  internal,  and  not  merely  external. 

I  do  not  believe,  therefore,  that,  if  Washington 
were  alive,  he  would  continue  to  insist  on  our  ob- 
serving his  warning  against  alliances.  Like  other 
consummate  statesmen  he  was  an  opportunist. 
He  held  certain  moral  doctrines  from  which  nothing 
could  swerve  him;  he  cherished  ideals  which  he 
always  strove  to  realize;  but  in  dealing  with  each 
present  fact,  he  was  a  stern  realist,  unbefogged  by 
theory  and  unscared  by  custom.  And  just  as  he 
would  never  have  prepared  an  outfit  of  pontoon 
bridges  to  cross  a  river  dry  enough  to  be  forded,  so  he 
would  not  now  ground  the  international  policy  of  the 
United  States  on  an  isolation  which  does  not  exist. 


58    VOLLEYS  FROM  A  NON-COMBATANT 

While  it  seems  likely  that  further  appeal  to 
Washington's  judgment  in  this  matter  may  soon 
cease,  his  warning  against  the  concrete  dangers 
of  a  foreign  alliance  cannot  grow  out  of  date. 
These  dangers  should  be  kept  in  mind  always, 
and  should  be  emphasized  whenever  it  is  proposed 
to  incur  them,  because  whenever  we  wish  strongly 
to  do  a  thing,  we  exaggerate  the  expected  benefits 
and  minimize  the  risk. 

A  historian  who  indulges  in  prophecy  deserves 
the  fate  of  a  fish  out  of  water.  Recall  what  the 
prophets  were  glibly  saying,  and  half  the  world 
was  believing,  less  than  three  years  ago.  There 
would  never  be  a  great  war  because  (i)  the  engines 
of  destruction  had  become  so  terrible  that  no 
troops  would  stand  up  before  them;  because  (2) 
commerce  had  bound  the  nations  together,  and 
identified  their  interests;  because  (3)  there  would 
not  be  money  enough  to  finance  a  war  on  the  mod- 
ern scale;  because  (4)  the  Socialists  and  proletari- 
ans everywhere,  members  of  a  world-wide  inter- 
national brotherhood,  would  refuse  to  fight  against 
their  fellows;  because  (5)  no  government  or  mon- 
arch could  be  so  wicked  or  insane  as  to  plunge 
mankind  into  the  most  horrible  catastrophe  in 
order  to  gratify  personal  or  dynastic  pride. 

So    argued    the    prophets;    yet    within    three 


INTERNATIONAL  RELATIONS  59 

months  the  war  which  they  had  proved  impossible, 
had  burst  upon  the  world.  After  thirty  months, 
this  war  is  raging  still.  Such  an  example  should 
put  prophecy  out  of  fashion  for  half  a  century.  I, 
at  least,  will  predict  nothing  definite  as  to  what  will 
happen  at  its  close. 

But  as  it  is  clear,  even  now,  that  international 
readjustments  on  a  world  scale  will  be  called  for, 
so  we  may  outline  what  might  well  be  the  general 
policy  of  the  United  States  in  the  new  system. 
For  in  spite  of  Washington,  we  shall  be  more  inex- 
tricably entangled  than  ever. 

Twenty  years  ago  Secretary  John  Hay  said  that 
by  holding  fast  to  the  cardinal  principles  of  the 
Monroe  Doctrine  and  the  Golden  Rule,  American 
diplomacy  could  hardly  go  far  wrong.  To-day, 
as  I  have  remarked,  the  stability  of  the  Monroe 
Doctrine  is  in  doubt,  and  the  Golden  Rule  was 
abrogated  when  our  Government  uttered  no  pro- 
test against  the  ravishing  of  Belgium.  Whether 
the  Monroe  Doctrine  stay  or  go,  the  restoration 
of  the  Golden  Rule  should  be  the  first  object  of  our 
Executive  Department;  because  that  describes 
the  spirit  in  which  all  our  diplomacy — nay,  all  our 
relations  with  the  world — should  be  conducted. 
"In  my  experience  of  diplomatic  life,"  John  Hay 
said  further — he  was  speaking  in  1901 — "which 


60    VOLLEYS  FROM  A  NON-COMBATANT 

now  covers  more  years  than  I  like  to  look  back 
upon,  and  in  the  far  greater  record  of  American 
diplomacy  which  I  have  read  and  studied,  I  can  say 
without  hesitation  that  we  have  generally  told 
squarely  what  we  wanted,  announced  early  in 
negotiation  what  we  were  willing  to  give,  and 
allowed  the  other  side  to  accept  or  reject  our 
terms."  Let  us  restore  this  simple,  straightfor- 
ward spirit  to  our  diplomacy;  let  us  stand  again 
honoured  among  the  nations. 

There  are  two  matters  on  which  the  United 
States  ought  henceforth  to  exert  a  great  influence; 
these  are  War  and  Democracy. 

When  the  present  struggle  ends,  there  should 
be  a  more  serious  effort  than  has  ever  been  made 
before  to  conclude  with  the  Great  Powers  of  the 
world  some  league  or  agreement  to  prevent  future 
wars.  Militarism  must  be  banned,  as  head- 
hunting— its  primitive  manifestation — was  long 
ago  banned.  We  must  smite  the  old  falsehood 
that  human  nature  is  always  the  same;  on  which  is 
based  the  fallacy  that  war  always  has  been  and  al- 
ways will  be.  Most  of  the  gains  which  have 
raised  man  above  his  original  brute  state  have 
been  made  in  spite  of,  and  often  forcibly  against, 
nature.  Cannibalism  was  once  common  and  quite 
in  the  way  of  nature;  it  is  still  practised  by  savages, 


INTERNATIONAL  RELATIONS  61 

but  nobody  urges  this  as  a  reason  why  we  should 
be  cannibals.  So,  too,  of  slavery.  The  historic 
fact  is  that  the  monarchs — who  are  the  instiga- 
tors of  most  of  the  wars — have  always  encouraged 
the  idea  that  war  is  inevitable.  If  they  worked  as 
zealously  for  peace,  can  we  suppose  that  peace 
would  not  ensue?  Latterly  we  have  heard  that 
war  is  a  biological  necessity.  This  fallacy  also, 
based  on  a  misinterpretation  of  the  phrase  "sur- 
vival of  the  fittest,35  has  been  exploded.  Nearly 
two  hundred  years  ago  Cardinal  Fleury,  the  astute 
minister  of  Louis  XV,  remarked  to  an  enthusiast 
who  had  written  a  book  to  show  how  future  wars 
could  be  prevented:  "You  have  forgotten,  Sir, 
as  a  preliminary  article,  to  commence  by  sending  a 
troop  of  missionaries  to  incline  the  heart  and 
mind  of  the  princes." 

It  will  devolve  upon  the  United  States,  which 
have  no  Hohenzollern,  or  Hapsburg,  or  Romanoff 
or  other  dynastic  ambition  to  serve  by  promoting 
war,  to  lead  the  nations  of  the  world  to  recognize 
that  peace,  not  war,  should  be  civilized  man's 
normal  condition;  and  this  we  can  never  do  by 
reiterating  the  catchwords  of  peace-at-any-price 
fanatics. 

Finally,  the  United  States  must  stand  among 
the  Powers  as  the  exponent  of  Democracy.  Our 


62    VOLLEYS  FROM  A  NON-COMBATANT 

diplomacy  must  be  democratic.  We  must  cease 
to  have  an  apologetic,  or  by-your-leave  manner 
in  our  international  conferences — a  manner  which 
is  not  less  offensive  than  that  of  the  spread  eagles 
who  sometimes  fill  the  halls  of  Congress  with  their 
screams.  The  representatives  of  Autocracy  never 
apologize;  they  never  beg  pardon  for  urging  their 
claims;  as  Adams  remarked,  they  never  indulge 
in  "superfluous  courtesy,"  nor  take  care  to  hide 
their  belief  that  those  with  whom  they  are  dealing 
are  inferior  beings.  Let  our  diplomacy  body  forth, 
without  bluster  or  evasion,  its  democratic  essence. 

One  who  has  had  the  vision  of  Democracy  knows 
only  too  well  that  this  ideal  has  never  been  realized, 
even  afar  off,  in  any  actual  democracy;  but  he 
knows  that  in  this  vision  lies  the  hope  of  the  human 
race.  Despotism,  the  virtual  ownership  of  the 
many  by  one  or  by  a  few,  has  existed  since  the  days 
of  the  cavemen.  Strip  it  of  its  modern  trappings 
and  subterfuges,  which  serve  to  disguise  its  real 
nature,  and  it  is  still  in  many  respects  pursuing  the 
aims  of  the  cavemen.  But  just  as  it  required 
many  ages  before  the  revelation  came  in  religion 
that  each  human  being  has  an  inviolable  soul 
through  which  to  apprehend  the  Infinite,  so  in 
civil  and  political  life  the  conception  developed 
slowly  that  each  individual  has  rights  which  no 


INTERNATIONAL  RELATIONS  63 

despot — call  him  kaiser  or  call  him  "the  State," 
as  you  please — should  infringe.  Then  the  convic- 
tion sank  in  that  under  Liberty  alone  can  man  at- 
tain his  highest  scope.  As  he  is  a  moral  agent,  so 
he  must  be  free  to  choose  and  to  act;  under  Des- 
potism, both  his  choice  and  his  acts  are  compul- 
sory. 

And  so  Democracy  arose  as  the  ideal  system. 
Merely  by  being,  it  became  the  irreconcilable 
Antagonist  of  Despotism;  every  inch  it  gained, 
meant  so  much  shorn  from  the  despot's  absolu- 
tism. During  the  nineteenth  century,  Democracy's 
advance  seemed  so  irresistible,  that  we  came  to 
assume  that  it  could  not  be  checked,  and  we  fur- 
ther assumed  that  its  doctrines  were  so  self- 
evident  that  any  one  who  understood  them  would 
embrace  them.  In  truth,  however,  ever  since 
the  fall  of  the  Bastille  in  1789,  autocrats,  and  the 
privileged  classes  on  which  they  depend,  have  been 
slowly  assembling  their  forces  in  order  to  crush 
democracy.  That  is  the  motive  at  the  heart  of 
the  present  war. 

With  the  world  thus  aligned — the  forces  of 
Democracy  on  one  side,  the  forces  of  Despotism 
on  the  other — an  alignment  which  seems  likely 
to  stand  for  years,  the  general  international  policy 
of  the  United  States  is  clear.  In  every  combina- 


64    VOLLEYS  FROM  A  NON-COMBATANT 

tion  into  which  the  question  of  Despotism  enters 
as  an  integral  and  essential  part,  we  must  uphold 
the  side  of  Democracy.  To  do  less  than  this 
would  be  to  deny  our  faith. 

Cases  may  arise  in  which  we  join  with  despotic 
countries  to  achieve  a  common  purpose,  but  that 
purpose  must  be  liberal,  not  despotic.  Thus  at 
the  time  of  the  Revolution  we  accepted  the  help 
and  alliance  of  the  despotic  King  of  France — and 
to  that  alliance  we  owe  more  than  we  can  ever  re- 
pay. Thus,  too,  in  1859,  Cavour  did  not  hesitate 
to  procure  the  assistance  of  the  despot  Napoleon 
III,  in  order  to  free  Italy.  Such  examples  show 
how  our  policy  should  turn. 

And  so  I  repeat  that,  henceforth  the  United 
States  must  exert  a  greater  influence  than  ever 
for  Democracy.  This  supreme  inheritance  has 
come  to  us  through  no  merits  of  our  own.  How 
many  ages  Destiny  waited!  Not  to  Greece  or 
Rome,  not  to  Imperial  Spain,  not  to  Renaissance 
Italy  or  France,  not  to  Germany  or  to  Russia 
did  the  Fates  entrust  this  last,  best  gift;  but  they 
poured  into  the  hearts  of  Washington  and  Adams, 
of  Jefferson  and  Hamilton  and  Franklin  an  un- 
derstanding of  Democracy,  and  confided  to  them 
the  founding  of  this  Republic.  And  later,  Destiny 
embodied  Democracy  in  Abraham  Lincoln. 


INTERNATIONAL  RELATIONS  65 

In  the  long  run  alliances  like  friendships  should 
be  based  on  affinity.  We  should  cleave  to  those 
whose  traditions,  whose  ideals,  whose  standards 
of  civilization  are  closest  to  ours.  "By  God! 
blood  is  thicker  than  water!"  exclaimed  the 
American  Commander  Tatnall,  nearly  sixty  years 
ago,  when  he  saw  British  men-of-war  being  ham- 
mered by  the  Chinese  Forts;  and  he  opened  fire 
on  the  Forts.  Thirty  years  later,  when  the  prepos- 
terous German  Admiral  Diederichs  threatened  to 
attack  Commodore  Dewey  at  Manila,  it  was  the 
British  Commander  Chichester  who  assured  Dewey 
that  he  would  stand  by  him.  And  at  that  very 
time,  when  Germany  was  secretly  urging  England 
to  join  a  coalition  to  prevent  the  American  fleet 
from  operating  against  Spain,  England  replied 
that  her  fleet  would  be  found  between  any  coalition 
fleet  and  the  American.  Blood  is  thicker  than 
water!  Let  that  be  remembered  by  the  shapers 
of  our  future  policy. 

This  is  our  inheritance;  this  is  our  trust.  Unless 
we  are  the  backsliders  we  have  lately  seemed  to 
the  world,  we  must  renew  our  faith  in  Democracy. 
We  must  be  Democratic  through  and  through  at 
home — at  home,  where  the  most  insidious  anti- 
Democratic  enemies  are  at  work — in  order  to  repre- 
sent Democracy  in  the  eyes  of  all  mankind.  The 


66    VOLLEYS  FROM  A  NON-COMBATANT 

Great  Experiment  has  reached  its  crisis.  Democ- 
racy, unorganized  and  undisciplined,  is  assailed  by 
the  elaborately  prepared  array  of  Despotism.  Woe 
unto  us  if  through  our  defection  Democracy 
perish. 


Ill 

ARE  THE  HOHENZOLLERNS  DOOMED? 

THE  German  ultimatum  of  January  31,  1917, 
with  its  affront  to  the  United  States,  and  its 
ill-disguised  attempt  to  humiliate  us  by  taking 
away  our  independence  on  the  seas,  was  accept- 
ed at  its  true  value  by  right-minded  Americans. 
Not  sufficient  attention  has  been  paid  to  it,  however, 
as  a  symptom  of  the  state  of  the  German  Empire, 
and  especially  of  the  anxiety  of  the  German  Kaiser. 
The  resumption  of  submarine  Frightfulness  meant 
but  one  thing — desperation. 

Persons  on  the  inside  who  knew  the  straits 
Germany  was  in  believed  the  act  of  desperation 
would  not  be  committed  before  next  May  or  June; 
that  it  was  ordered  for  February  first  indicates 
that  the  German  plight  was  keener  than  had  been 
supposed.  Not  that  the  Germans  were  actually 
starving,  but  that  they  had  reached  the  point 
where  they  felt  hungry  all  the  time,  and  were 
beginning  to  understand  that,  as  there  was  no 

1Reprinted  by  permission,  North  American  Review,  May,  1917.     Copy- 
righted by  the  North  American  Review  Publishing  Company. 

67 


68    VOLLEYS  FROM  A  NON-COMBATANT 

way  to  replenish  their  stores,  the  approach  of 
real  starvation  was  inevitable  and  would  be  more 
and  more  rapid.  For  a  people  which  ordinarily 
devours  more  and  drinks  more  than  any  other, 
deprivation  of  food  was  a  grievous  ordeal.  It 
must  have  occurred  to  the  Kaiser  and  the  General 
Staff  that  possibly  hunger  might  open  the  eyes 
of  this  docile  and  abjectly  subservient  people 
and  that  the  Almightiest  must  have  asked  himself: 
"If  they  should  awaken,  what  then?"  Hunger 
would  accept  no  excuses.  Hunger  might  not  be 
duped  by  lies.  Other  nations,  plunged  into  ruin 
by  arrogant  and  self-seeking  monarchs,  had,  when 
their  eyes  were  opened,  taken  the  first  opportunity 
of  ridding  themselves  of  those  monarchs,  either 
by  killing  them  or  by  deposing  them.  England 
beheaded  one  Stuart,  and  drove  another  into  exile; 
France  repudiated  the  first  Napoleon  after 
Waterloo,  and  the  third  Napoleon  after  Sedan;  and 
Spain  ousted  Isabella  the  Second:  although  none 
of  these  sovereigns,  not  even  the  great  Napoleon, 
had  brought  on  their  respective  countries  such  dis- 
asters as  Germany  has  already  suffered  under 
William  the  Second. 

Napoleon  used  to  be  regarded  as  unrivalled  as  a 
concocter  of  false  despatches  and  lying  bulletins; 
but  he  dwindles  into  insignificance  before  the 


ARE  THE  HOHENZOLLERNS  DOOMED?  69 

fabrications  of  William  the  Second.  The  Kaiser 
began  the  war  with  a  lie  when  he  told  the  Berlin 
populace  that  the  sword  had  been  forced  into  his 
hand,  the  fact  being  that  for  twenty-five  years 
he  had  made  every  preparation  to  draw  the  sword 
at  a  favourable  moment  and  had  frequently  be- 
come so  impatient  to  draw  it  that  he  rattled  its 
scabbard  ominously.  He  drew  it  on  August  i, 
1914,  because  he  supposed  that  the  enemies  whom 
he  expected,  by  a  quick  dash,  to  make  his  victims, 
were  unprepared.  Even  in  those  last  days  he 
might  have  prevented  it  by  a  single  word  to  his 
vassal  Austria;  but  he  withheld  that  word,  and 
when  he  found  that  Austria  was  opening  "con- 
versations" with  Russia  he  sent  the  ultimatum 
to  Russia  and  the  threat  to  France  which  assured 
war  within  twenty-four  hours :  and  yet  he  pretended 
that  the  sword  had  been  forced  into  his  unwilling 
hand — and  the  German  people  believed  him. 

The  war  once  begun,  he  served  his  subjects  with 
falsified  news.  For  more  than  two  months  they 
were  led  to  believe  that  he  had  overwhelmed  the 
French  and  taken  possession  of  Paris,  and  even 
to-day  Germans  are  ignorant  of  their  armies'  de- 
feat at  the  Marne  and  of  their  retreat.  So  when 
the  German  troops — obedient  to  the  system  of 
Frightfulness,  which  had  been  elaborated  in  cold 


70    VOLLEYS  FROM  A  NON-COMBATANT 

blood  by  the  General  Staff  long  before — perpe- 
trated atrocities  hitherto  unpractised  in  modern 
times  by  civilized  men,  the  Kaiser  saw  to  it  that 
his  Germans  should  believe  that  these  atrocities 
were  perpetrated  on  German  soldiers  by  the  French 
and  by  the  Belgians.  And  this  transparent  deceit, 
which  an  Iroquois  Indian  would  have  disdained, 
was  resorted  to  when  each  new  horror  was  let  loose, 
and  the  German  people  was  duly  humbugged. 

As  time  went  on  the  Kaiser's  scale  of  falsifying 
facts  reached  larger  proportions.  He  told  his 
Teutons  and  the  world,  fof  instance,  that  the 
United  States  had  no  right  to  export  munitions  to 
the  Allies:  and  yet  for  fifty  years  Prussia  has  sold 
munitions  to  any  belligerents  in  time  of  war,  and 
sold  them  impartially,  and  the  Kaiser  has  pre- 
sumably enjoyed  the  extra  dividends  which  this 
traffic  brought  to  him  as  a  stockholder  in  the 
Krupp  Works.  His  paid  agents  in  the  United 
States  worked  this  dodge  so  persistently  that  they 
succeeded  in  having  a  bill  introduced  into  Congress 
to  put  an  embargo  on  the  exportation  of  munitions. 
And  yet  no  one  doubts  that  if  American  munitions 
could  have  been  or  could  now  be  landed  in  Ger- 
many the  Kaiser  would  have  bought  as  many  of 
them  as  American  dealers  could  supply. 

Next  he  declared  that  the  British  blockade  was 


ARE  THE  HOHENZOLLERNS  DOOMED?  71 

illegal,  because  a  blockade  to  be  legal  must  be 
effective;  but  in  the  same  breath  he  protested 
against  the  cruelty  of  the  British  who  by  their 
blockade  were  starving  the  innocent  non-combatant 
women  and  children  of  Germany.  Yet  to-day 
he  is  justifying  the  renewal  of  the  submarine  Fright- 
fulness  on  the  ground  that  by  it  he  can  quickly 
starve  England  into  submission  and  raise  the 
British  blockade  which  has  reduced  the  Father- 
land to  hunger.  "Well,"  we  ask,  "how  can  the 
British  blockade  be  both  ineffective  and  so  devil- 
ishly effective  at  the  same  time  ? "  But  why  expect 
even  the  consistency  of  a  successful  liar  from 
clumsy  perjurers  who,  when  one  false  statement 
fails,  contradict  it  by  another  equally  false? 

Of  all  the  German  transactions  with  mendacity 
none  has  a  more  comic  aspect  than  that  by  which 
they  attempted  a  few  months  ago  to  convince  their 
people  that  the  Allies  were  responsible  for  the  con- 
tinuation of  the  war.  "We  have  beaten  them," 
said  the  Kaiser  and  his  echoes,  "and  yet  they 
insist  upon  going  on  fighting.  They  are  a  wicked 
people  not  to  know  when  they  are  beaten.  Let 
the  blood  of  further  contest  be  on  their  heads! 
In  my  desire  for  peace,  in  my  abhorrence  of  the 
inhumanity  of  war,  I  graciously  condescend  to 
stop  now  and  to  grant  terms  which  will  leave  them 


72    VOLLEYS  FROM  A  NON-COMBATANT 

shorn  of  territory,  devastated,  impoverished,  and 
mightily  bereaved,and  will  establish  beyond  cavil 
the  fact  that  militarism  pays  and  that  there  is  no 
punishment  for  a  predatory  War  Lord."  Such 
the  substance  of  the  Imperial  declaration. 

Similarly  comic  was  the  Kaiser's  pronouncement 
as  to  the  Battle  of  Jutland  when  he  assured  the 
world  that  he  had  won  the  sublimest  naval  victory 
of  all  time,  a  victory  by  which  he  became  Lord 
High  Admiral  of  the  Atlantic  (and  probably  of 
other  oceans).  Now  a  victory  of  that  kind  is 
easily  verified.  The  victorious  fleet  not  only 
holds  the  scene  of  the  conflict,  but  it  passes  im- 
periously and  unchallenged  over  every  sea.  But 
the  German  fleet  that  fought  off  Jutland  not  only 
did  not  stay  on  the  scene,  but  it  actually  slunk 
away  under  cover  of  darkness  to  its  well-protected 
base,  from  which  it  has  taken  care  not  to  emerge 
since,  its  chief  audacity  being  to  send  out  occa- 
sionally in  the  night  or  in  a  fog  a  cruiser  that  can 
quickly  run  home  when  she  sees  an  enemy.  Such 
practices  revolutionize  our  conception  of  a  naval 
victory.  Nelson's  fleet  did  not  slink  away  after 
Trafalgar,  nor  did  Farragut  after  he  crushed 
the  enemy  at  Mobile  Bay;  and  yet  a  victory  so 
overpowering  as  to  entitle  the  Kaiser  to  the 
supremacy  of  the  ocean  must  at  least  have 


ARE  THE  HOHENZOLLERNS  DOOMED?  73 

been  as  decisive  as  those  of  Farragut  and  of 
Nelson. 

The  Kaiser  now  protests  to  his  Hunnish  hearers 
that  the  responsibility  for  war  between  Germany 
and  the  United  States  must  fall  on  us.  Germany, 
he  says,  has  never  wished  for  war  with  America. 
"Why  should  she?"  we  ask;  "for,  ever  since  1914, 
she  has  committed  with  impunity  whatever  war- 
like or  atrocious  acts  she  chose.  Her  agents  con- 
spired at  violence  here,  to  terrorize  our  people. 
They  blew  up  factories,  mines,  and  steamships; 
they  connived  at  assassination;  they  organized 
sedition;  on  the  high  seas  she  destroyed  our  ships 
and  our  citizens  without  even  an  apology:  and 
latterly,  her  submarines  have  sunk  all  ships 
without  warning.  Her  crimes  against  humanity 
make  respectable  the  deeds  of  pirates  who  sailed 
under  the  black  flag." 

And  when  at  last  the  United  States  takes  steps 
to  dispose  of  the  German  monster,  Germany 
whines  that  she  ought  not  to  be  treated  in  this 
fashion.  A  gunman,  who  shot  up  a  town  at  pleas- 
ure, and  insisted  that  nobody  must  stop  him,  could 
not  act  more  contemptibly,  if,  when  the  police 
surrounded  him,  he  whimpered  that  it  wasn't 
fair.  But  the  Prussian  whimper  has  always  been 
the  counterpart  of  the  Prussian  truculence. 


74    VOLLEYS  FROM  A  NON-COMBATANT 

It  was  doubtless  as  pleasant  for  the  Kaiser  to 
beguile  his  subjects  with  such  tales,  as  it  is  for 
the  victim  of  paresis  to  insist  that  he  is  sovereign 
of  the  world:  but,  as  the  Arab  proverb  says, 
"Falsehoods,  like  chickens,  come  home  to  roost." 
And  even  in  Germany,  if  we  may  judge  by  the 
signs  which  reach  us  in  spite  of  the  most  rigorous 
censorship,  willingness  to  swallow  the  Kaiser's 
assertions  is  no  longer  universal.  German  soldiers 
who  have  gone  back  from  the  front  have  told  their 
people  that  the  army  never  entered  Paris;  and  a 
few  civilians,  at  least,  must  know  that  the  German 
fleet,  instead  of  sailing  triumphantly  over  the  At- 
lantic, has  huddled  prudently  under  cover  at  its 
base.  The  facts  in  regard  to  the  rest  of  William's 
falsifications  have  also  trickled  through  the  dense 
barrier  officially  raised  against  the  passage  of 
perilous  truth  and  through  the  predisposition  to 
accept  the  Kaiser's  utterances  as  a  revelation  from 
heaven. 

How  far  this  has  gone  we  cannot  say,  but  the 
fact  that  the  truth  has  penetrated  any  German 
minds — as  recent  utterances  in  the  Reichstag  indi- 
cate— is  of  great  significance;  for  it  must  inevitably 
spread,  and  unless  the  entire  German  nation  is  as 
barbarous  as  the  acts  and  creeds  of  the  Prussian 
militarists  who  have  misled  it,  there  will  be,  when 


ARE  THE  HOHENZOLLERNS  DOOMED?  75 

the  truth  is  generally  understood,  a  mighty  revul- 
sion against  the  misleaders,  the  Kaiser  first  of  all. 
That  he  has  already  had  an  inkling  of  this  possibly 
appears  from  the  frequency  with  which  he  has 
disavowed  his  responsibility.  "I  did  not  will 
war,"  he  has  reiterated;  but  if  the  war  were  really 
the  stupendous  victory  which  he  has  also  pro- 
claimed it  to  be,  is  it  not  strange  that  he  evades 
taking  credit  for  it  ?  Such  modesty  in  him  would 
be  unlooked  for;  assuredly,  it  is  suspicious. 

The  political  revolution  in  Russia  has  given  the 
Kaiser  and  his  Ring  terrible  anxiety:  for  although 
the  Slavs  at  Petrograd  who  carried  that  revolution 
through  are,  politically,  far  in  advance  of  the 
Germans,  there  is  still  the  possibility,  at  least,  that 
some  Germans  may  try  to  imitate  them,  and  so 
start  an  avalanche  which  may  bury  the  Autocrat 
and  his  satellites.  The  deification  of  the  Czar 
did  not  save  him:  what  if  the  "Me  and  Gott" 
superstition  should  fail  to  save  the  Kaiser? 

From  now  on  the  gnawing  at  the  stomachs  of 
seventy  million  Germans — a  gnawing  that  will 
grow  day  by  day  more  mordant  as  the  means  to 
appease  it  lessens — will  force  the  seventy  million 
German  minds,  dependent  on  those  hungry  stom- 
achs, to  inquire:  "What  have  we  been  fighting 
for?  Why  should  we  go  on  fighting?"  The  se- 


76    VOLLEYS  FROM  A  NON-COMBATANT 

ductive  dream  of  World-Empire,  which  they  had 
been  taught  to  cherish,  during  the  twenty  years 
before  1914,  was  dashed  at  the  Battle  of  the  Marne. 
The  dream  which  they  substituted  for  it  of  an  em- 
pire extending  from  the  North  Sea  to  the  Persian 
Gulf,  seems  likewise  unattainable.  "Why,  then, 
should  we  go  on  fighting?  All  these  projects 
were  undertaken  to  gratify  the  ambition  of  the 
Kaiser,  who  imagined  himself  greater  than  Na- 
poleon, and  of  the  Junkers  and  militarist  oligarchy, 
who,  having  throttled  Prussia,  have  Prussianized 
Germany.  The  Kaiser  and  his  henchmen  de- 
ceived us  by  assuring  us  that  the  immense  costs 
of  this  war  would  not  fall  upon  us  but  upon  the 
vanquished  enemy,  from  whom  crushing  indemni- 
ties would  be  wrung;  but  we  see  now  that  there  will 
be  no  indemnities  except  those  that  we  may  be 
compelled  to  pay.  The  deceivers,  these  betrayers 
of  Germany,  have  sacrificed  her  good  name. 
Only  a  generation  ago,  before  we  were  inoculated 
with  the  Prussian  virus,  which  like  a  serpent's 
sting  maddens  its  victim,  we  were  honoured 
throughout  the  world:  where  is  our  honour  now? 
Our  word  is  despised:  we  tear  up  treaties  and 
forswear  our  pledges;  by  our  system  of  Frightful- 
ness  we  have  reverted  to  the  level  of  Huns  and 
have  earned  the  loathing  and  abhorrence  of  the 


ARE  THE  HOHENZOLLERNS  DOOMED?  77 

civilized  world  forever.  What  gain  in  territory 
could  compensate  for  this  loss  of  honour  or  could 
redeem  us  from  this  reversion  to  the  standards  of 
the  brute?" 

Such  poignant  questions  we  can  believe  that 
the  intrepid  Liebknecht  and  those  who  think  like 
him,  are  already  asking  themselves;  and  the  num- 
ber of  such  questioners  must  surely  increase.  We 
can  easily  imagine  that  the  princes  and  the  people 
of  the  non-Prussian  German  states  also  will  begin 
to  search  their  hearts.  The  King  of  Bavaria,  for 
instance,  may  wake  up  to  perceive  that  he  has  been 
wasting  his  Bavarian  treasure  and  his  Bavarian 
troops  in  a  war  for  the  glory  of  Prussia  and  of  the 
House  of  Hohenzollern.  Possibly  some  Bavarian 
will  recall  that  complimentary  Prussian  saying — 
"A  Bavarian  is  the  missing  link  between  monkeys 
and  Austrians."  Even  if  the  war  had  resulted  in 
the  winning  of  world-power,  it  would  be  Prussia 
and  the  King  of  Prussia  who  profited  by  it;  and  in 
proportion  as  the  King  of  Prussia,  under  his  alias 
of  the  German  Emperor,  become  magnified,  the 
King  of  Bavaria  would  be  reduced  to  insignificance. 
And  this  would  be  true  of  the  King  of  Wiirtemberg 
and  the  other  princes.  If  the  war  ends  in  the 
defeat  of  Germany  without  the  destruction  of 
Prussian  militarism,  it  is  quite  within  probability 


78    VOLLEYS  FROM  A  NON-COMBATANT 

that  Prussia  may  annex  Bavaria,  Saxony,  Wurtem- 
berg,  and  the  other  autonomous  states,  depose  their 
rulers,  and  abolish  their  independent  govern- 
ments. This  action  might  serve  as  a  sop  for  the 
insatiable  ambition  of  the  Hohenzollerns.  Nor 
is  the  idea  fanciful,  since  Bismarck  in  1866  de- 
spoiled Hanover  and  other  non-Prussian  German 
states  in  order  to  aggrandize  Prussia.  When 
such  thoughts  begin  to  seethe  in  the  brain  of  the 
Bavarian  King,  he,  too,  may  ask  himself:  "What 
are  we  Bavarians  righting  for?"  So  long  as  there 
was  a  likelihood  that  he  and  his  brother  princes 
might  receive  a  share  of  the  world — which  the 
Pan-Germanists,  inspired  from  Prussia,  preached 
was  to  be  won  in  this  war — they  might  think  it 
worth  while  to  engage  in  the  adventure.  Paternal 
and  dynastic  pride  must  justifiably  swell  at  the 
thought  that  the  Bavarian  Crown  Prince  might  rule 
as  Proconsul  of  England,  or  a  Wurtemberg  prince 
as  Satrap  of  New  York  State,  or  a  Saxon  personage 
as  Viceroy  of  India,  and  all  within  a  year  or  two. 
But  General  Foch  pricked  all  those  bubbles  on 
September  9,  1914. 

In  nothing  have  the  Hohenzollerns  since  1871 
been  more  astute  than  in  persuading  the  non- 
Prussian  Germans  that  their  welfare,  if  not  their 
very  existence,  depended  upon  the  House  of  Hohen- 


ARE  THE  HOHENZOLLERNS  DOOMED?  79 

zollern.  Military  service  fostered  this  creed;  so  did 
the  educational  system,  which,  from  the  kinder- 
garten to  the  highest  grades  of  the  university, 
magnified  the  person  and  authority  of  the  Kaiser. 
The  mighty  influence  and  fame  of  Bismarck — to 
whom  was  owing  far  more  than  to  the  King  of 
Prussia  himself  the  creation  of  the  German  Empire, 
with  the  consequent  glorification  of  the  Hohen- 
zollern — helped  immensely  in  this  process,  because 
he  was  regarded  as  a  German  national  hero  long 
before  they  were  accepted  as  the  national  over- 
lords. The  schoolboy  of  Baden  or  Saxony  or 
Bavaria  was  brought  up  to  acknowledge  allegiance 
to  the  ruler  of  his  special  state,  but  he  inevitably 
recognized  a  higher  allegiance  to  the  German 
Emperor,  who  was  actually  supreme.  If  the 
German  Emperor  decided  to  make  war,  the  small 
monarchs  had  perforce  to  follow  him;  because, 
although  there  is  the  pretense  of  equality  in  the 
German  Imperial  Federation,  it  is  a  pretense  and 
nothing  more.  From  1866,  Prussia  has  taken 
care  to  hold  the  dominant  vote  and  the  little 
princes  have  taken  care,  after  casting  their  vote, 
not  to  risk  extinction  by  thwarting  Prussia. 

The  question  now  is  whether  the  loyalty  of  the 
Germans  to  the  Hohenzollern  monarch  will  hold 
in  disaster.  Now,  when  the  Kaiser  has  not  won, 


80    VOLLEYS  FROM  A  NON-COMBATANT 

what  do  non-Prussians  think?  They  say  little  or 
nothing  yet — except  a  few  significant  voices  in 
Parliament — because  it  is  still  dangerous  to  speak 
out;  but  they  must  be  thinking;  and  as  they 
enjoy  once  a  fortnight  the  luxury  of  an  ounce  of 
meat-dripping  or  a  quarter  of  a  sausage,  they  must 
.be  formulating  opinions  in  regard  to  the  Kaiser 
who  has  reduced  them  to  this. 

What  are  their  opinions?  Do  they  begin  to 
suspect  that  they  were  duped  by  those  rainbow 
promises  of  the  Kaiser?  Do  they  ask  on  what 
ground  the  Kaiser  and  the  General  Staff  asserted 
that  the  war  would  be  a  very  easy  enterprise — 
two  or  three  weeks  in  which  to  destroy  France 
and  then  a  month,  at  the  longest,  to  crush  Russia  ? 
Do  they  doubt  whether  a  war  lord  who  made  so 
colossal,  so  ruinous,  a  misestimate  of  the  primary 
factors  in  the  war,  is  a  leader  to  be  trusted  or  to  be 
obeyed  any  further?  How  must  German  fathers 
and  mothers  feel  on  learning  that  when  the  Kaiser 
was  told  at  the  beginning  of  the  war  that  it  would 
cost  a  million  lives  to  hack  his  way  to  Paris,  he 
replied,  cold-bloodedly:  "Go  ahead!  We  can 
spare  them!"  This  same  Kaiser  sacrificed  half  a 
million  Germans  at  Verdun  in  the  hope  of  winning 
a  victory  which  would  give  prestige  to  the  degen- 
erate Crown  Prince:  do  the  scores  of  thousands 


ARE  THE  HOHENZOLLERNS  DOOMED?  81 

of  bereaved  families  of  those  soldiers,  immolated 
for  the  dynastic  schemes  of  the  Hohenzollerns, 
regard  such  slaughter,  for  such  a  purpose,  with 
approval?  On  one  hand,  half  a  million  of  the  best 
soldiers  in  Germany,  on  the  other,  a  weasel- 
featured  crown  prince. 

The  stability  of  the  Kaiser  obviously  depends  on 
his  success  in  hiding  from  the  German  people  the 
truth  about  the  war.  It  seems  unlikely  that  he 
can  keep  up  much  longer  his  original  falsehood 
that  the  jealous  and  wicked  enemies  of  Germany 
had  leagued  themselves  together  against  the  Ger- 
man nation.  For  a  long  time,  myriads  of  Germans 
have  known  that  this  was  not  true,  but  of  course 
they  have  held  their  tongues.  The  silly  pretense 
that  Belgium  was  about  to  invade  the  Fatherland 
has  also  been  discarded.  So,  too,  the  charge  that 
England  was  the  aggressor  fell  foolishly  when  it 
was  known  that,  at  the  outbreak  of  the  war,  she 
had  less  than  160,000  soldiers  ready  for  immediate 
service,  and  that  she  required  more  than  a  year  in 
order  to  train  and  to  put  into  the  field  a  million  men. 
Many  Germans  are  quite  aware  of  these  truths 
now  but  they  go  on  denying  them  because  they  do 
not  dare  to  disobey  orders  from  above,  and  because 
the  official  German  has  been  taught  to  believe  that 
a  lie  well  stuck  to  is  more  effective  than  truth. 


82    VOLLEYS  FROM  A  NON-COMBATANT 

But  what  will  happen  when  the  day  of  disillu- 
sionment comes  to  the  German  people,  when  they 
understand  that  the  war  was  not  thrust  upon  them 
by  wicked  enemies  but  that  their  Kaiser  and  his 
militarist  ring  engaged  in  it  for  selfish  and  dynastic 
ends  ?  The  Kaiser  can  hardly  go  on  much  longer 
appeasing  them  by  telling  them  that  they  hold 
Belgium  and  northeastern  France,  Poland,  Serbia, 
and  Roumania.  Even  a  docile  people  will  at  last 
inquire  why  it  is  that  these  victories,  instead  of 
bringing  peace,  simply  serve  to  protract  the  war? 
Why  does  each  "victory"  increase  their  hunger? 
The  answer  is,  to  quote  a  common  Hindu  proverb, 
that  "He  who  holds  a  tiger  by  the  ears  dares  not 
let  go";  but  the  Kaiser,  of  course,  would  not 
vouchsafe  so  true  a  statement.  Nevertheless, 
the  German  people  must  before  long  begin  to  sus- 
pect the  truth,  and  in  their  hour  of  disillusionment 
they  may  rise  in  wrath  and  smash  the  House  of 
Hohenzollern.  That  is  what  other  races,  more  ad- 
vanced in  political  consciousness  and  self-respect 
and  less  servile  in  traditions,  would  do.  We 
surmise  that  that  is  what  the  Kaiser  himself 
fears  they  may  do.  He  is  now  in  a  position  similar 
to  that  of  the  French  Terrorists.  He  has  adopted 
the  atrocious  method  of  unlimited  submarine  war- 
fare as  a  last  desperate  expedient,  just  as  Robe- 


ARE  THE  HOHENZOLLERNS  DOOMED?  83 

spierre,  in  1793,  resorted  to  the  frightful  dispensa- 
tion of  the  guillotine  which  never  stopped.  Atro- 
city for  atrocity,  the  Kaiser's  is  the  more  abomin- 
able, and  it  may  fail  him  as  surely  as  unlimited 
guillotining  failed  to  save  the  Terrorists. 

The  French — a  high-spirited  people,  accessible  to 
the  noblest  ideals,  but  ground  down  and  almost 
cretinized  by  the  Bourbon  regime — rose  and  ousted 
the  Bourbon  king  and  put  him  to  death,  and  then, 
when  they  found  themselves  being  exterminated 
by  the  Terrorists,  they  rose  and  guillotined  them. 
The  Germans  are  a  very  different  people,  but, 
sooner  or  later,  they,  too,  will  feel  the  irresistible 
impulse  of  liberty  and  will  rise  against  the  Hohen- 
zollern  Dynasty  which  has  deprived  them  of  it, 
which  has  seduced  them  into  a  terrible  war,  sub- 
jected them  to  immense  hardships,  and  brought 
them  to  the  brink  of  ruin.  Perhaps  the  day  is 
at  hand  when  they  will  repudiate  their  betrayers. 


IV 

JOHN  HAY'S  POLICY  OF  ANGLO-SAXONISM' 

THE  permanent  hates  and  friendships  of  a  na- 
tion, like  those  of  an  individual,  should  be 
rooted  in  character,  not  in  caprice.  Among  the 
elements  which  go  to  form  character  in  a  nation, 
is  geography:  thus,  but  for  her  unexampled  geo- 
graphical position,  Germany  for  instance  would 
never  have  thought  of  dominating  Europe  and  the 
world;  for  geography  more  than  doubles  the  fight- 
ing advantage  of  her  military  power. 

When  we  look  back  over  history,  however, 
we  find  that  caprice  rather  than  character  has 
often  been  the  cause  of  wars  and  of  international 
likes  and  dislikes.  Under  caprice,  we  must  reckon 
the  personal  ambition,  dreams,  theories,  of  rulers 
and  statesmen — a  fact  which  sufficiently  confutes 
those  who  assert  that  the  individual  counts  for 
nothing  in  shaping  human  destiny.  Take  Eng- 
land and  France  during  the  nineteenth  century, 
and  see  how  their  governments  blow  now  hot  now 
cold.  After  Waterloo,  when  the  Napoleonic  peril 

1From  the  World's  Work,  November,  1917. 

84 


JOHN  HAY'S  POLICY  85 

was  crushed,  England  got  on  comfortably  with 
France  for  more  than  two  decades,  and  then — 
on  Louis-Philippe's  attempt  to  marry  the  French 
princes  to  women  who,  England  thought,  would 
dangerously  increase  the  political  influence  of 
France — England  was  on  the  point  of  declaring 
war  on  France.  And  yet,  in  less  than  ten  years  she 
had  joined  France  in  an  actual  war  against  Russia. 
The  Crimean  Campaign  had  scarcely  been  ended 
before  England,  alarmed  by  the  supposed  trucu- 
lence  of  the  French  Emperor  and  his  militarist 
ring,  was  preparing  for  a  war  with  France.  Never- 
theless, during  the  American  Civil  War  official 
England  combined  with  France  in  abetting  un- 
officially the  Southern  Confederacy.  Owing  to 
the  shortsightedness  of  British  statesmen,  which 
led  them  to  follow  rigidly  their  policy  of  splendid 
isolation;  owing  also  to  the  pro-German  prefer- 
ences of  Queen  Victoria  and  her  Court,  England 
allowed  Prussia  to  mangle  Denmark  in  1864,  to 
overwhelm  Austria  in  1866,  and  to  crush  and  dis- 
member France  in  1870-71. 

Thereafter,  however,  she  began  to  have  an  ink- 
ling of  what  the  domination  of  a  Prussianized  Ger- 
many meant,  and  in  1875  when  Bismarck  planned 
to  force  another  war  on  France  and  to  bleed  her 
white — for  she  had  recovered  her  strength  eco- 


86    VOLLEYS  FROM  A  NON-COMBATANT 

nomic  and  military  too  rapidly  for  him — England 
privately  intimated  to  him  that  she  could  not 
tolerate  such  aggression. 

In  1882  came  the  upheaval  in  Egypt,  which 
broke  up  the  dual  control  of  England  and  France, 
and  left  in  its  wake  much  rancour.  During  the 
twenty  years  which  followed,  her  relations  with 
France  fluctuated  between  friendliness  and  dis- 
trust bordering  on  hostility.  And  yet  at  the 
Congress  of  Berlin,  Lord  Salisbury  connived 
with  Bismarck  to  give  France  a  free  hand  in 
Tunis — an  act  which  was  secretly  intended  by 
Bismarck  to  weaken  France  in  her  capacity  to 
attack  Germany.  Then  the  Fashoda  Incident 
flared  up  and  kindled  in  British  breasts  a  sud- 
den fiery  desire  for  war. 

Here  assuredly  is  a  list — I  might  lengthen 
it  if  I  went  into  more  details — which  shows  the 
lack  of  a  solid  policy  toward  France  during  the 
nineteenth  century;  this  lack  must  be  attributed, 
of  course,  to  the  absence  of  any  great  foreign 
minister  in  England  during  that  period — for  the 
fiction  cherished  by  British  Tories,  that  the  late 
Lord  Salisbury  was  a  great  Foreign  Minister,  is 
exploded.  With  the  accession  of  King  Edward 
VII,  in  1901,  light  began  to  break.  He  saw, 
and  his  advisers  saw,  that  the  great  menace, 


JOHN  HAY'S  POLICY  87 

not  only  to  England's  commercial  prosperity 
but  to  the  peace  of  the  world,  was  Germany's 
now  unconcealed  ambition  with  which  the  House 
of  Hohenzollern  identified  its  fortunes.  England 
abandoned  her  splendid  but  sterile  isolation. 
Within  five  years  Edward  the  Tactful  had  quietly 
made  agreements  with  France  and  other  countries, 
to  repel,  if  need  be,  a  German  irruption.  So  much 
for  the  mottled  Anglo-French  relations  during  the 
century  between  Waterloo  and  the  outbreak  of 
the  Atrocious  War.  Does  not  this  record  suggest 
that  those  relations  have  been  almost  haphazard, 
not  to  say  opportunist  in  the  shallowest  sense  ? 

Consider,  now,  how  England  and  the  United 
States  have  got  on  together  since  our  American 
Independence  was  sealed  at  Yorktown  in  1781.  . 

The  Colonies  revolted  against  the  Mother 
Country  primarily  to  recover  the  liberties  which 
every  Englishman  regarded  as  his  own  by  right 
of  a  long  inheritance.  As  the  war  went  on,  and 
the  wisest  Americans  looked  forward  to  the  con- 
dition which  would  confront  them  at  its  close, 
they  decided  that  not  Liberty  alone  but  Independ- 
ence also  must  be  achieved.  And  so  they  created 
a  new  nation,  a  Republic  in  form  but  embodying 
in  its  substance  the  very  principles  of  the  English 
Commonwealth  from  which  they  had  broken  away. 


88    VOLLEYS  FROM  A  NON-COMBATANT 

They  had  the  same  love  of  liberty,  the  same  instinc- 
tive veneration  for  individual  rights,  the  same 
common  law.  There  is  much  to  be  said  in  favour 
of  those  historians  who  regard  the  installation  by 
the  United  States  of  a  Democracy  in  form  as  well 
as  in  substance  as  the  logical  consummation 
of  the  political  and  social  evolution  which  had 
gone  on  in  England  since  the  Norman  Conquest. 
That  evolution  found  at  home  great  obstacles  to 
the  regular  process;  but  in  America,  where  the  con- 
ditions were  obviously  freer,  where  also  the  re- 
tarding survivals  of  Feudalism  had  gained  no 
foothold,  Democracy,  the  inevitable  product  of 
Anglo-Saxonism,  found  a  natural  home. 

So  the  American  Revolution  was  like  a  family 
break,  in  which  when  the  son  comes  of  age,  and 
is  thwarted  or  oppressed  by  an  obdurate  father, 
he  asserts  his  own  independence;  and,  as  usually 
happens  in  family  breaks,  much  bitterness  re- 
mained on  both  sides.  American  patriots  could 
always  rouse  their  countrymen  by  citing  the 
wicked  acts  or  intentions  of  the  British;  and  the 
British  often  justified  such  citation.  If  any  of 
them  ever  dreamt  that  some  time  or  other  the 
new  American  Nation  would  fall  to  pieces  and 
be  absorbed  in  the  British  Empire,  the  War  of 
1812  quenched  that  dream.  That  war,  rather 


JOHN  HAY'S  POLICY  89 

inglorious  on  both  sides,  left  no  doubt  as  to  the 
permanence  of  the  United  States.  Thenceforth 
the  official,  commercial,  and  social  relations  of  the 
two  countries  became  almost  friendly;  but  the 
Americans  felt  keenly  the  superciliousness  of  some 
of  their  British  critics.  They  were  conscious  of 
being  engaged  in  the  work  of  building  up  a  rnighty 
nation;  they  wished  to  be  judged  by  their  ideals 
and  not  by  the  imperfections  of  the  moment.  So 
they  winced  when  Dickens  held  up  the  barbarities 
of  a  frontier  village  as  if  it  were  a  fair  example 
of  the  fruits  of  American  Democracy;  they  winced 
when  Sydney  Smith  asked:  "Who  reads  an  Ameri- 
can book?"  Now,  just  as  in  a  family  feud,  per- 
haps overfrank  criticisms  wound  the  sensitive 
members  without  causing  overt  hostility,  so  this 
attitude  of  the  people  of  the  Mother  Country 
toward  their  cousins  across  the  sea  caused  heart 
burnings  but  led  to  no  open  quarrel. 

Indeed,  the  United  States  had  so  far  reestab- 
lished official  friendship  with  England  that  as  early 
as  1823 — only  eight  years  after  the  battle  of  New 
Orleans — President  Monroe  and  John  Quincy  Ad- 
ams accepted  the  proposal  of  the  English  states- 
man, George  Canning,  and  agreed  to  prevent  the 
restoration  of  Spanish  monarchical  rule  in  the  Amer- 
ican Hemisphere.  This  agreement,  after  under- 


90    VOLLEYS  FROM  A  NON-COMBATANT 

going  many  changes,  appears  as  the  Monroe  Doc- 
trine of  to-day.  During  the  next  generation,  the 
two  countries  lived  amicably  although  several 
questions  spurted  up  and  kindled  temporary  ex- 
citement. Disputes  over  our  northern  boundary 
even  caused  our  grandfathers  to  rally  to  the  battle 
cry  "Fifty-four  forty,  or  fight/'  but  the  prudent 
on  both  sides  prevailed;  the  rasping  issues  were 
smoothed  by  compromise  and  a  treaty  cemented 
peace,  which  has  been  in  danger  of  breaking  only 
twice  for  more  than  seventy  years. 

The  first  occasion  was  during  our  Civil  War 
when  the  British  Government  through  laxness 
almost  permitted  a  breach  of  neutrality  in  favour 
of  the  Southern  Confederacy.  The  second  was  at 
the  end  of  1895  when  President  Cleveland  fired 
at  England  his  terrific  message  on  the  Venezuela 
Boundary  Question.  As  a  cause  of  irritation  and 
enmity  the  behaviour  of  a  part  of  the  British  upper 
classes  in  1862-63  was  quite  as  potent  as  was  the 
protection  given  privateers  and  blockade  runners 
or  the  fitting  out  of  the  Alabama.  Our  fathers  re- 
sented the  actual  hostility  and  they  felt  a  disap- 
pointment mingled  with  contempt  for  Britishers 
speaking  the  English  language  and  bred  on  the 
English  principles  of  justice  and  liberty  who  sided 
with  the  Southern  slave-holders.  Although  the 


JOHN  HAY'S  POLICY  91 

resentment  has  lasted  to  this  day  it  would  long 
since  have  smouldered  into  oblivion  but  for  the 
existence  here  of  an  element  which  cultivated 
the  hatred  of  England  with  fanatical  tenacity. 

This  element  was  the  Irish,  who  after  1840 
immigrated  to  this  country  in  large  numbers, 
and  bore  in  their  hearts  an  undying  grievance 
against  English  rule  in  Catholic  Ireland.  That 
that  rule  had  been  harsh  and  unsympathetic,  if 
not  actually  cruel,  no  one  can  doubt;  and  op- 
pressed Ireland  would  have  had  the  same  general 
sympathy  which  the  Americans  gave  to  Italy, 
Hungary,  and  the  other  downtrodden  European 
countries,  if  the  leaders  of  the  Irish  Cause  here 
had  been  men  of  different  character.  Displaying  a 
remarkable  talent  for  the  lower  sort  of  politics,  the 
Irish  got  control  of  our  large  cities,  and,  in  spite  of 
their  temperamental  passion  for  cracking  each 
other's  heads,  they  kept  together  as  a  political 
body — partly  because  only  by  keeping  together 
could  they  capture  and  divide  the  rich  spoils, 
partly  by  their  Roman  Catholic  affiliations,  and 
partly  by  the  desire  to  help  their  friends  at  home. 
The  Irish  were  the  first  foreign  immigrants  who 
perpetuated  their  home  feuds  here,  and  who  in- 
jected into  American  politics  troubles  which  did 
not  concern  America,  but  were  purely  Irish.  To 


92    VOLLEYS  FROM  A  NON-COMBATANT 

secure — and,  having  secured,  to  hold  and  control 
—the  Irish  vote  became  a  commonplace  for  Amer- 
ican politicians.  English  rule  in  Ireland  slowly 
improved,  but  the  Irish-Americans,  who  made  a 
business  of  exploiting  Irish  grievances,  simply 
increased  the  virulence  of  their  attacks  on  England. 
Impartial  observers  on  the  outside  perceived  that 
this  was  the  easiest  method  by  which  the  agitators 
could  contrive  to  wring  contributions  from  the 
Irish-American  population.  Where  the  money 
went  was  never  disclosed;  the  condition  of  needy 
peasants  in  County  Kerry  might  not  be  benefited 
by  it,  but  the  condition  of  the  agitators  and  their 
accomplices  suffered  no  harm.  No  worthy  cause 
has  ever  had  worse  promoters  than  that  of  Ireland 
has  had  here. 

The  result  of  the  Irish  agitation  in  the  United 
States  has  been  twofold;  it  has  hurled  into  our 
politics  a  foreign  feud  which  has  often  taken 
precedence  in  congessional  or  legislative  questions 
over  purely  American  affairs;  it  has  fostered  and 
kept  alive  the  anti-British  feeling,  which  was  fast 
dying  out.  The  early  history  books  used  in  our 
public  schools  breathed  hatred  against  British  red 
coats;  the  later  ones,  compiled  with  a  view  to  being 
acceptable  to  public  school  trustees  and  pupils, 
may  have  changed  their  language  but  they  have 


JOHN  HAY'S  POLICY  93 

not  moderated  their  anti-British  spirit.  Until  the 
present  war — when  we  have  seen  the  Irish  mayors 
of  some  of  our  cities  preside  over  meetings  at 
which  Hibernian  demagogues  have  lauded  Prussia 
and  denounced  an  alliance  which  made  us  a  part- 
ner of  England  in  the  great  struggle  of  Civilization 
against  Hunnish  Barbarism — I  recall  no  instance  of 
Irish  truculence  more  striking  than  the  attempt  to 
discredit  and  cause  the  dismissal  of  James  Russell 
Lowell  more  than  thirty  years  ago.  Mr.  Lowell 
was  then  the  American  Minister  in  London  and  he 
had  to  deal  with  several  cases  of  Irishmen  who 
claimed  to  be  American  citizens,  in  order  to 
gain  immunity  from  the  crimes  they  committed  in 
Ireland.  A  man  who  uses  this  subterfuge  is 
sufficiently  despicable,  but  the  Irish  fire-eaters 
here,  instead  of  repudiating  such  sneaks,  as- 
sailed Mr.  Lowell  as  an  unpatriotic  and  false 
American,  a  grovelling  Anglomaniac,  and  they 
used  all  their  threats  and  persuasion  to  make 
President  Arthur  recall  him.  Aristophanes  him- 
self could  not  have  devised  a  situation  more  sar- 
donically humorous  than  this:  the  most  American 
of  Americans  being  barked  at  as  disloyal  by  Irish 
immigrants  many  of  whom  had  not  yet  been  nat- 
uralized as  Americans.  Perhaps  it  adds  a  comic 
touch  when  I  say  that  Mr.  Lowell  told  me  that 


94   VOLLEYS  FROM  A  NON-COMBATANT 

he  was  one  of  the  first,  if  not  the  first,  to  urge  upon 
Mr.  Gladstone  the  policy  of  Home  Rule,  after  the 
Phoenix  Park  murders  in  1882.  His  trust  in  free- 
dom, his  belief  that  justice  alone  can  finally  settle 
long-standing  quarrels,  were  fundamental,  not  to 
be  shaken  even  by  the  snarling  of  his  traducers. 

I  do  not  wish  to  exaggerate  the  anti-British 
propaganda  of  the  Irish-Americans,  or  to  at- 
tribute to  their  whole  body  excesses  in  tenets, 
methods,  and  acts  which  belonged  to  a  pestilent 
minority  among  them,  and  which  were  quite 
un-American;  but  nobody  can  understand  the 
fluctuations  in  American  feeling  toward  Eng- 
land in  the  nineteenth  century  without  taking  into 
account  the  great  influence  here  which  the  Irish 
have  had.  Only  we  must  take  care  not  to  measure 
the  real  state  of  public  opinion  by  the  capacity  of 
a  few  to  vociferate. 

In  the  last  decade  of  the  nineteenth  century,  the 
United  States  and  England  were  officially  on 
friendly  terms,  having  only  some  small  griev- 
ances of  long  standing  (mostly  referring  to  fish- 
eries and  other  matters  in  which  Canada  was  in- 
volved) to  disturb  the  monotony  of  their  friendli- 
ness. Then,  at  the  end  of  December,  1895,  Presi- 
dent Cleveland,  through  his  Secretary  of  State, 
Richard  Olney,  addressed  to  the  British  Govern- 


JOHN  HAY'S  POLICY  95 

ment  a  bludgeon-like  message,  intimating  that 
England  must  either  submit  her  quarrel  with 
Venezuela  over  their  boundary  line  to  arbitration, 
or  take  the  consequences.  Both  America  and 
England  were  amazed,  startled,  and  almost  stam- 
peded into  blows  by  the  tone  and  suddenness  of 
this  document.  It  is  hardly  too  much  to  say  that 
the  whole  world  held  its  breath  in  astonishment. 
Perhaps  it  was  John  Bull's  phlegmatic  tempera- 
ment that  caused  him  to  delay  for  a  little  before 
taking  action  which  would  plunge  him  irrevocably 
into  war.  Perhaps  it  was  that  habit  of  sobriety 
which  has  characterized  for  generations  past 
the  real  statesmanship  of  England.  The  wisest 
men  of  both  nations  laboured  mightily  to  prevent 
a  clash,  and  they  succeeded.  Lord  Salisbury's 
Government  recognized  that  it  would  be  mon- 
strous for  Great  Britain  and  the  United  States 
to  cut  each  other's  throats  over  a  question  in- 
volving only  a  few  hundred  square  miles  of  un- 
inhabited wilderness,  between  Venezuela  and  Brit- 
ish Guiana.  They  also  recognized,  as  did  just 
men  throughout  the  world,  that  the  principle  of 
arbitration  on  which  President  Cleveland  insisted 
ought  to  be  followed  and  upheld  in  international 
disputes. 
Though  England  backed  down,  as  it  was  vul- 


96    VOLLEYS  FROM  A  NON-COMBATANT 

garly  said,  and  her  official  intercourse  with  the 
United  States  went  on  unruffled,  the  incident  could 
not  fail  to  rankle  in  British  hearts. 

It  happened  that  in  1896  a  Presidential  cam- 
paign took  place.  Major  McKinley  was  the 
Republican  candidate;  Mr.  William  J.  Bryan, 
his  opponent,  had  disrupted  the  Democratic 
Party  and  hoped  to  be  elected  on  a  platform 
which  declared  for  free  silver:  that  is,  a  debased 
and  dishonest  currency.  The  English,  unflinch- 
ing in  their  support  of  the  gold  standard,  had  the 
further  reason  to  hope  for  the  election  of  McKin- 
ley in  that  it  would  bring  a  different  policy  into 
the  American  Department  of  State. 

Here  John  Hay  enters,  quite  unofficially,  as 
an  international  figure.  He  was  now  59  years 
old,  he  had  had  a  varied  career,  distinguished 
in  many  ways.  In  his  youth  he  had  served 
President  Lincoln  as  private  secretary,  and  he 
was  the  intimate  companion  of  that  great  and 
lonely  man.  Then  he  had  spent  five  years  as  a 
diplomat  in  France,  in  Austria,  and  in  Spain.  For 
several  years  he  ranked  as  the  most  brilliant 
editorial  writer  on  the  New  York  Tribune,  at 
the  time  when  that  journal  stood  at  the  head  in 
America.  He  had  published  volumes  of  prose 
and  poetry,  which  carried  his  name  beyond  the 


JOHN  HAY'S  POLICY  97 

seas  and  brought  him  friendship  among  literary 
men.  A  keen  student  of  politics,  he  knew  the 
political  currents  and  the  politicians  at  Wash- 
ington, New  York,  and  in  the  Middle  West. 
Under  Evarts  he  served  as  Assistant  Secretary 
of  State  during  the  Hayes  administration.  He 
and  Nicolay  published  a  monumental  history  of 
Abraham  Lincoln  which  gave  him  another  dur- 
able sort  of  fame.  Persons  who  thought  about 
it  at  all  wondered  why  John  Hay,  the  stanch 
Republican,  with  almost  every  qualification  for 
public  office,  had  never  been  put  forward  by  his 
party.  The  reason  was,  as  President  Harrison 
brutally  expressed  it,  "There  isn't  any  politics 
in  it."  This  was  true,  for  with  all  his  charm  and 
attractions  Hay  never  had  a  political  following. 
Now,  however,  he  made  what  I  may  call  his  social 
fitness  tell  in  behalf  of  our  country,  and  thereby 
he  probably  served  it  better  than  he  could  have 
done  had  he  held  an  official  post. 

The  summer  of  1896,  while  the  Republicans 
and  the  Bryanites  were  campaigning  over  here, 
John  Hay  spent  in  England  and  in  France.  He 
not  only  had  many  cherished  friends  in  Eng- 
land but  he  also  had  social  access  to  some  of 
the  most  influential  public  men;  and  these  he 
assured  that  England  must  not  hope  for  any 


98    VOLLEYS  FROM  A  NON-COMBATANT 

change  in  foreign  policy  in  the  Venezuelan  affair 
in  the  event  of  Major  McKinley's  election.  No 
American  party,  he  said,  would  reverse  the  policy 
of  Arbitration.  He  also  soothed  as  far  as  he  could 
the  irritation  which  the  message  had  caused,  and 
since  he  spoke  as  a  private  American  gentleman 
known  to  be  personally  trustworthy,  and  to  have  the 
confidence  of  McKinley  and  the  other  Republican 
leaders,  his  words  sank  in.  We  cannot  estimate 
how  far  such  an  influence  extends,  we  can  only  say 
that  the  ruling  class  in  England  felt  more  kindly 
toward  the  United  States  after  John  Hay's  friendly 
visit  than  before. 

The  next  spring,  Major  McKinley  having  been 
elected,  he  appointed  Hay  Ambassador  to  Great 
Britain.  During  the  intervening  months  Hay 
had  been  pondering  over  the  changed  position  into 
which  the  United  States  were  thrust  by  the  brusque 
assertion  of  the  Monroe  Doctrine.  He  saw  that 
this  made  us  a  World  Power,  and  although  he  could 
not  foresee  into  what  vicissitudes  this  transforma- 
tion might  carry  us,  he  knew  that  we  could  never 
be  as  a  nation  what  we  had  been,  and  that  we 
must  lay  out  and  pursue  a  new  policy  adapted  to 
the  risks  and  obligations  of  our  new  position.  I 
would  not  imply  that  he  had  as  yet  formulated 
any  definite  scheme,  but  rather  that  his  alert  mind, 


JOHN  HAY'S  POLICY  99 

being  aware  of  the  change,  was  on  the  lookout  for 
new  symptoms,  and  was  prepared  to  deal  quickly 
with  them. 

Hay  reached  England  early  in  May,  1897,  and 
during  the  ensuing  year  he  made  himself  persona 
grata  in  official  circles,  and  even  more  through  his 
unofficial  friendly  intercourse  with  the  English,  he 
extended  his  influence,  and  greatly  enhanced  the 
good  feeling  between  the  two  peoples.  That  he 
did  this  deliberately,  as  the  result  of  much  medita- 
tion, which  had  crystallized  into  conviction,  there 
can  be  no  doubt.  And  events  soon  burst  upon 
the  world  which  put  his  conviction  to  the  test  and 
justified  it.  In  April,  1898,  the  United  States, 
after  watching  long  and  patiently  Spanish  inhu- 
manities in  Cuba,  declared  war  against  Spain,  and 
proposed  to  aid  Cuba  to  her  independence.  The 
Continental  Powers  of  Europe  received  this  decla- 
ration angrily.  France  and  Germany  had  invested 
much  capital  in  Spain,  and  this  would  be  put  in 
jeopardy  if  Spain  had  to  bear  the  heavy  financial 
burden  of  a  war.  Also  since  Cleveland's  Venezuela 
Message  proclaiming  the  Monroe  Doctrine,  the 
European  nations,  some  more,  some  less,  felt  ag- 
grieved by  it,  and  wished  to  probe  how  far  the 
United  States  would  back  up  their  truculent  chal- 
lenge to  the  non-American  world. 


ioo  VOLLEYS  FROM  A  NON-COMBATANT 

During  the  weeks  which  succeeded  the  sinking 
of  the  Maine  (February  15,  1898),  Hay  left  nothing 
undone  to  propitiate  England,  and  he  worked  to 
good  purpose;  for  after  the  declaration  of  war, 
Germany  very  secretly  asked  England  to  join  her 
and  France  in  putting  their  fleets  between  Cuba 
and  the  United  States  Fleet.  The  English  Foreign 
Secretary  replied  promptly  "No"  and  he  added 
that  if  the  British  Fleet  took  any  part' in  the  war, 
it  would  be  to  stand  between  the  European  fleets 
and  the  American.  The  immense  service  which 
England  rendered  the  United  States  by  this  act 
cannot  be  overestimated,  and  it  should  more  than 
offset,  as  I  think,  the  unfriendliness  of  the  British 
Tories  toward  us  during  our  Civil  War.  Reflect 
for  a  moment  what  would  have  happened  if  Eng- 
land had  listened  to  Germany's  reptilian  proposal. 
With  those  three  European  fleets  guarding  the 
coast  of  Cuba,  we  could  never  have  reached  that 
island,  much  less  have  landed  our  armies  on  it. 
And  so  we  should  have  been  forced  to  call  off  the 
War  with  Spain,  a  humiliation  for  which  modern 
history  has  no  parallel.  Or  if  our  ships  had  been 
so  insane  as  to  attack  those  of  the  European  coali- 
tion, we  should  have  had  a  war  with  England, 
France,  and  Germany  on  our  hands,  our  Atlantic 
seaboard  would  have  been  defenseless,  and  all  our 


JOHN  HAY'S  POLICY  101 

sea  cities  from  Charleston  to  Eastport  would  have 
been  at  the  mercy  of  our  enemies.  What  losses 
we  should  have  suffered,  what  huge  indemnities 
we  should  have  had  to  pay,  who  can  compute? 
Kaiser  William  remarked  at  the  time  to  an  Eng- 
lishman who  repeated  the  remark  to  Mr.  Joseph 
Chamberlain:  " If  I  had  had  a  larger  fleet  I  would 
have  taken  Uncle  Sam  by  the  scruff  of  the  neck." 
What  the  Prussian  Despot  means  when  he  takes  a 
nation  by  the  scruff  of  the  neck,  the  world  has 
since  learned. 

If  England  had  nursed  any  malign  ambition 
against  the  United  States,  if  she  wished  to  injure 
our  industrial  and  commercial  prosperity,  or  to 
gain  territory,  or  merely  to  pay  back  old  grievances 
and  especially  the  brusque,  not  to  say  brutal 
Venezuela  Message,  she  had  only  to  join  the  naval 
coalition  with  which  the  Kaiser  tempted  her.  Had 
she  done  that,  the  Monroe  Doctrine  would  have 
vanished  into  thin  air,  as  thistledown  is  blown 
away  and  disappears  before  the  autumn  gale;  for 
what  does  the  Monroe  Doctrine  signify,  unless  it 
be  upheld  by  a  powerful  United  States?  This 
most  friendly  English  act,  known  in  that  crisis 
only  to  a  very  few  in  London  and  in  Washington, 
must  become  more  and  more  venerated  by  Ameri- 
cans; and  I  hope  that  the  time  is  not  far  off  when 


102  VOLLEYS  FROM  A  NON-COMBATANT 

the  name  of  the  British  statesman  who  made  that 
decision  is  as  familiar  here  and  is  as  much  revered 
as  is  that  of  the  great-hearted  Frenchman  Lafayette 
who,  in  our  earliest  national  crisis,  brought  succour 
and  risked  his  life  in  order  that  the  American  Col- 
onies might  establish  their  independence. 

Unhampered  by  serious  foreign  interference  we 
freed  Cuba  in  the  summer  of  1898.  Late  in  Sep- 
tember John  Hay  returned  to  Washington,  to  be 
Secretary  of  State,  a  position  which  he  held  until 
his  death,  July  1, 1905.  He  knew  what  England  had 
replied  to  Germany,  and  he  could  have  told,  per- 
haps better  than  any  one  else,  how  much  his 
straightforwardness  and  urbanity,  whether  social 
or  official,  had  helped  to  dispose  the  English  to  be 
friendly  toward  us.  He  had  been  frequently  with 
Mr.  Chamberlain  and  on  familiar  terms;  and  we 
can  imagine  with  what  satisfaction  he  read  the 
speech  which  that  statesman  made  at  Birmingham 
on  May  n,  1898. 

"What  is  our  next  duty?"  Mr.  Chamberlain 
asked  his  hearers.  "It  is  to  establish  and  to  main- 
tain bonds  of  permanent  amity  with  our  kinsmen 
across  the  Atlantic.  There  is  a  powerful  and  a 
generous  nation.  They  speak  our  language. 
They  are  bred  of  our  race.  Their  laws,  their 
literature,  their  standpoint  upon  every  question, 


JOHN  HAY'S  POLICY  103 

are  the  same  as  ours.  Their  feeling,  their  interests 
in  the  cause  of  humanity  and  the  peaceful  develop- 
ments of  the  world  are  identical  with  ours.  I  don't 
know  what  the  future  has  in  store  for  us;  I  don't 
know  what  arrangements  may  be  possible  with  us; 
but  this  I  do  know  and  feel,  that  the  closer,  the 
more  cordial,  the  fuller,  and  the  more  definite  these 
arrangements  are,  with  the  consent  of  both  peoples, 
the  better  it  will  be  for  both  and  for  the  world — and 
I  even  go  so  far  as  to  say  that,  terrible  as  war  may 
be,  even  war  itself  would  be  cheaply  purchased  if, 
in  a  great  and  noble  cause,  the  Stars  and  Stripes 
and  the  Union  Jack  should  wave  together  over  an 
Anglo-Saxon  alliance." 

"Chamberlain's  startling  speech,"  Hay  wrote 
to  Senator  Lodge  from  London,  "was  partly  due 
to  a  conversation  I  had  with  him,  in  which  I  hoped 
he  would  not  let  the  Opposition  have  a  monopoly 
of  expressions  of  good  will  to  America." 

Hay  knew  also  that  Chamberlain  did  not  stop 
at  the  friendliest  words  merely;  because  he  knew — 
and  the  American  public  does  not  yet  know — what 
took  place  at  Manila  when  the  preposterous  Von 
Diederichs,  the  German  Admiral,  threatened  Com- 
modore Dewey,  and  Chichester,  the  British  com- 
mander, privately  informed  Dewey  that  if  there 
were  trouble  the  Union  Jack  would  fight  beside  the 


104  VOLLEYS  FROM  A  NON-COMBATANT 

Stars  and  Stripes.  Dewey  was  not  the  man  to  be 
intimidated  by  the  superior  German  force  but  he 
doubtless  felt  more  comfortable  after  receiving 
Chichester's  assurance.  That  assurance  was  the 
practical  proof  of  Chamberlain's — that  is  England's 
— friendship  for  us. 

Once  in  Washington,  at  the  head  of  the  Depart- 
ment of  State,  John  Hay  made  the  maintenance 
of  the  mutual  good  will  between  the  United  States 
and  Great  Britain  the  cardinal  point  of  his  policy. 
Secretary  Hay  had  no  thought,  however,  that  he 
was  conceding  everything.  Far  from  it.  "All 
I  have  ever  done  with  England,"  he  wrote  to 
Secretary  John  W.  Foster,  on  June  23,  1900,  "is 
to  have  wrung  great  concessions  out  of  her  with  no 
compensation.  And  yet,  these  idiots  say  Pm  not 
an  American  because  I  don't  say,  To  hell  with 
the  Queen/  at  every  breath."  There  were  critics, 
of  course,  who  did  not  refrain  from  insinuating 
that  he  had  become  an  Anglomaniac,  "a  tool  of 
England,"  one  of  those  degenerate  Americans 
whose  snobbish  instincts  burst  forth  and  blossom 
in  the  atmosphere  breathed  by  the  British  nobility. 
Even  his  friends,  like  Senator  Lodge,  feared  at 
times  that  Hay  in  his  desire  to  be  friendly  and  more 
than  fair  to  England,  saw  some  matters  from  too 
strictly  an  English  point  of  view.  But  John  Hay 


JOHN  HAY'S  POLICY  105 

was  an  American  through  and  through,  and  his 
Americanism  does  not  require  my  defense  or  that 
of  any  one  else.  In  his  youth  he  spent  four  years 
at  the  elbow  of  Abraham  Lincoln  in  whom  he  saw 
Democracy  embodied,  active,  beneficent,  inde- 
fectible. Then,  after  having  studied  the  Despo- 
tisms of  Napoleon  III  at  Paris,  and  of  Francis 
Joseph  at  Vienna,  he  wrote  John  Bigelow:  "I  am 
a  "Republican  till  I  die;  when  we  get  to  heaven, 
we  can  try  a  monarchy,  perhaps." 

When  the  Irish  demagogues  learned  that  Hay 
favoured  the  English  in  the  Boer  War,  they  abused 
him  as  they  had  Lowell.  If  he  could  have  spoken 
out  then  in  regard  to  England's  help  to  us  in 
squelching  the  proposed  coalition  of  European 
fleets  against  us  in  1898,  I  imagine  he  would  have 
said:  " Since  the  first  Irishman  landed  in  this 
country  till  now,  the  Irish-Americans  have  never 
done  any  service  to  the  United  States  comparable 
to  this.  When  you  have,  you  may  abuse.  Mean- 
while, drop  your  hyphen  in  the  only  simple,  loyal, 
patriotic  way;  become  Americans." 

No,  Secretary  Hay's  policy  was  not  based  on 
a  snobbish  Anglomania,  but  on  the  perception 
that  the  welfare  of  the  world  depended  then,  and 
would  depend  more  and  more,  on  the  firmest  alli- 
ance between  the  two  great  English-speaking 


<io6  VOLLEYS  FROM  A  NON-COMBATANT 

nations.  This  alliance,  he  recognized,  could  never 
be  preserved  on  the  ground  of  material  interest. 
He  knew  that  among  nations  of  high-minded  men, 
mere  trade  can  never  be  the  dominant  reason  for 
friendship  or  hostility.  "By  God!  "  said  Com- 
modore Tatnall,  the  American  commander,  as  he 
steered  his  ship  to  aid  the  English  ships  which  were 
being  pounded  by  the  Chinese  forts  in  1860,  "blood 
is  thicker  than  water."  Hay  knew  that  in  origin 
and  in  essence  American  blood  and  English  blood 
run  from  the  same  veins,  the  veins  of  men  who  had 
supported  Saxon  Alfred,  who  had  demanded  the 
Great  Charter  which  curtailed  the  tyranny  of  the 
king;  who  had  risen  up  and  suffered  martyrdom  in 
behalf  of  religious  freedom — comrades  of  Hampden 
and  Cromwell,  believers  in  the  law  of  Habeas 
Corpus,  of  the  Bill  of  Rights  and  of  every  other 
reform  to  protect  the  individual  against  oppression, 
and  to  perfect  him  to  the  utmost  in  his  mind,  body, 
and  estate.  Every  drop  of  true  American  blood 
carries  latent  within  it  the  seed  of  these  ideals; 
when  it  is  otherwise,  the  American  Republic  will 
cease  to  be,  and  despotism  in  one  of  its  monstrous 
forms  will  take  its  place. 

This  conviction  underlies  Hay's  international 
negotiations.  Whatever  business  came  up,  he 
unconsciously  or  consciously  judged  it  by  its  bear- 


JOHN  HAY'S  POLICY  107 

ing  on  the  Great  Friendship,  which  was  his  ideal. 
So  far  as  England  went,  he  had  the  friendly  cooper- 
ation of  the  public  men  whom  he  had  known  there, 
and  of  Sir  Julian  Pauncefote,  the  British  Ambassa- 
dor in  Washington.  Sir  Julian  was  a  diplomat  of 
long  training,  with  the  manners  of  a  man  of  the 
world,  courtly,  reserved  rather  than  effusive,  and 
accessible  to  those  stimuli  which  touch  the  gene- 
rosity or  the  sportsmanlike  instincts  of  the  best 
Britons.  Personally,  Hay  and  he  worked  together 
in  the  happiest  accord.  Each  felt  that  the  other 
was  an  honourable  gentleman,  and  so  trusted  him. 

I  pass  over  many  of  the  smaller  affairs  which 
they  had  to  attend  to  together;  and  I  come  to  a 
matter  of  the  first  importance — the  negotiation  of 
the  Panama  Canal  Treaty. 

To  connect  the  Atlantic  and  Pacific  oceans  by  a 
canal  had  been  the  dream  of  visionaries  long  before 
the  tools  and  apparatus  existed  for  carrying  out 
such  a  project.  The  obvious  convenience  a  canal 
would  afford  to  commerce  required  no  argument. 
As  soon  as  the  United  States  became  a  World 
Power,  the  need  of  a  canal  for  naval  and  military 
purposes  loomed  up,  and  during  the  Spanish-Ameri- 
can War,  when  the  battleship  Oregon  had  to  make 
the  voyage  from  San  Francisco  round  Cape  Horn, 
everybody  saw  this  need.  In  1888  a  French  Com- 


io8  VOLLEYS  FROM  A  NON-COMBATANT 

pany  which  was  excavating  a  canal  at  Panama 
went  to  pieces,  and  for  more  than  ten  years  the 
enterprise  lay  dormant,  although,  in  the  interval, 
another  company  was  formed  to  promote  the  route 
through  Nicaragua.  But  our  position  in  the  world 
had  now  changed  so  radically,  our  wisest  men 
insisted  that  wherever  the  canal  were  run  it  must 
belong  to  the  United  States.  Before  the  question 
of  ownership  could  be  decided,  however,  England 
and  the  United  States  must  come  to  an  agreement; 
because  in  1850  those  countries  had  signed  the 
Clayton-Bulwer  Treaty,  which  gave  them  joint 
control  and  joint  obligations  over  the  Isthmus  of 
Panama.  Lord  Salisbury,  the  British  Prime  Min- 
ister, declared  his  willingness  to  have  the  matter 
negotiated,  and  accordingly  Secretary  Hay  and 
Ambassador  Pauncefote  set  to  work  heartily. 

Hay  saw  in  this  transaction  an  opportunity  not 
merely  for  forwarding  a  commercial  plan  of  vast 
scope,  but  of  welding  the  friendship  between  Eng- 
land and  America.  This,  to  him,  was  by  far  the 
most  important  aspect  of  the  matter  and  if  when 
the  draft  of  the  Treaty  was  published  the  terms 
seemed  too  unfavourable  to  the  United  States,  this 
was  owing  to  Secretary  Hay's  conviction  that 
almost  any  concessions  were  worth  making  if  they 
could  lead  to  a  solid  and  permanent  bond  between 


JOHN  HAY'S  POLICY  109 

the  two  nations.  Nevertheless,  the  first  Treaty 
was  defeated  by  the  Senate,  and  before  the  second 
Treaty  had  been  discussed  Pauncefote  had  died. 
From  this  second  arrangement  the  objectionable 
features  of  the  first  were  left  out,  and  in  their  stead 
were  incorporated  the  terms  which  Colonel  Roose- 
velt, Senator  Lodge,  and  others  had  urged  through- 
out— including  complete  control  as  well  as  owner- 
ship of  the  Canal  by  the  United  States,  and  the 
right  of  our  Government  to  fortify  it. 

In  all  these  negotiations  Hay's  Anglo-Saxonism, 
as  we  may  call  it,  cropped  out,  and  I  suspect  that 
he  impressed  it  upon  his  British  colleagues  so 
that  they,  too,  began  to  see  in  it  more  reason  and 
significance  than  they  had  dreamed  of.  Always 
slow  to  readjust  themselves  to  new  political  com- 
binations, the  English  did  not  for  a  long  time  ap- 
praise at  its  true  value  the  rising  menace  of  Ger- 
many. Tradition  imposed  on  them  the  policy  of 
splendid  isolation  from  meddling  with  the  affairs 
of  continental  Europe,  except  in  so  far  as  these 
might  seem  to  threaten  their  supremacy  in  India. 
They  supposed  Russia  to  be  their  only  dangerous 
European  neighbour,  and  they  therefore  scarcely 
noted  the  rise  in  Europe  of  a  Power  which  was  pre- 
paring not  only  to  dominate  Europe,  including 
Great  Britain,  but  also  to  conquer  the  world. 


no  VOLLEYS  FROM  A  NON-COMBATANT 

I  would  not  claim  that  Secretary  Hay  recognized 
to  the  full  the  exorbitance  of  the  German  Kaiser's 
ambition;  but  he  did  see  the  direction  which  Ger- 
man schemes  were  taking,  and  he  knew  from  his 
official  dealings  the  methods  of  the  German  Gov- 
ernment. Their  brutal  seizure  of  Kiao-Chau  and 
appropriation  of  Shan-Tung  disgusted  him.  He 
abominated  German  Frightfulness  as  it  was  re- 
hearsed by  Waldersee's  troops  after  the  Boxer 
Uprising  in  1900.  "At  least  we  have  been  spared," 
Hay  wrote  privately  to  his  friend,  Mr.  Henry 
Adams  on  November  21,  1900,  "the  infamy  of  an 
alliance  with  Germany;  I  would  rather,  I  think,  be 
the  dupe  of  China  than  the  chum  of  the  Kaiser. 
Have  you  noticed  how  the  world  will  take  anything 
nowadays  from  a  German  ?  Billow  said  yesterday 
in  substance — cWe  have  demanded  of  China  every- 
thing we  can  think  of.  If  we  think  of  anything 

else  we  will  demand  that,  and  be  d d  to  you' — 

and  not  a  man  in  the  world  kicks." 

Like  the  rest  of  the  world  in  those  days,  Hay 
sometimes  took  the  preposterous  Teutonic  pro- 
jects somewhat  derisively,  as  the  phantasmagoria 
of  a  megolomaniac  prince,  who  inherited  the  Ho- 
henzollern  taint  of  insanity  and  resorted  to  any 
means  for  advertising  himself.  Even  when  put 
forth  by  the  slick  and  wily  Billow,  these  schemes 


JOHN  HAY'S  POLICY  in 

failed  to  convince.  And  yet  Hay,  witnessing  Ger- 
man expansion  in  many  parts  of  the  world,  did 
not  fail  to  ask  himself  what  influence  could  in  the 
long  run  successfully  compete  with,  if  not  actually 
overthrow,  the  Pan-German  power.  Himself  a 
confirmed  Democrat,  he  understood  the  defects  of 
Democracy,  and  I  think  it  not  too  much  to  assert 
that  he  foresaw  the  danger  which  Democracy 
would  run  in  any  conflicts  with  a  disciplined  mili- 
tarist autocracy. 

Such  pondering  led  him  to  regard  an  Anglo- 
Saxon  union — not  necessarily  based  on  official  com- 
pacts, but  rooted  in  the  ideals  of  a  common  race — 
as  the  world's  only  safeguard  against  Teutonic 
domination.  This  conviction  caused  him  to  regret 
the  differences  which  sprang  up  between  the  English 
Foreign  Office  and  Washington,  in  the  settlement 
of  the  Alaska  Boundary,  in  the  dispute  over  New- 
foundland fisheries,  and  in  several  other  affairs  of 
secondary  moment.  As  he  knew  how  ticklish  diplo- 
macy is,  so  he  wished  to  avoid  even  the  most  fleeting 
annoyances.  In  the  main  the  two  countries  acted 
most  cordially  toward  each  other  to  the  end.  Once, 
however,  British  policy  with  Germany  flew  off  at  a 
tangent,  and  perplexed  Hay  greatly.  The  British 
Foreign  Office  has  not  yet  explained  this  aberration 
publicly,  and  so  it  is  not  for  me  to  disclose  it. 


112  VOLLEYS  FROM  A  NON-COMBATANT 

In  President  Roosevelt,  Secretary  Hay  had  a 
strong  collaborator,  from  the  year  1901  on.  The 
President  was  the  clearer  in  seeing  America's  ad- 
vantages. He  had  understood  also,  quite  as  early 
as  Hay  did,  the  implications  of  the  Monroe  Doc- 
trine and  the  new  needs  and  obligations  which  the 
position  of  World  Power  thrust  upon  the  United 
States.  Nor  did  he  fear  hurting  England's  feelings, 
when  he  believed  that  his  demands  were  just.  It 
was  Roosevelt,  and  not  Hay,  who  brought  to  a 
prompt  and  satisfactory  conclusion  negotiations 
which  had  dragged  on  too  long.  Thus  he  hastened 
the  solution  of  the  Alaskan  Boundary  dispute  by 
writing  a  private  letter  to  an  American  judge, 
travelling  abroad,  whom  he  asked  to  show  it  (in- 
discreetly of  course)  to  Mr.  Chamberlain  and 
other  English  statesmen.  Whoever  read  that 
letter  could  have  no  doubt  that  the  dispute  must 
be  settled  at  once,  and  settled  in  conformity 
with  American  rights. 

So  also  it  was  the  President  who  detached  Eng- 
land from  her  partnership  with  Germany  in  block- 
ading Venezuela,  and  he  it  was  who  then  forced  the 
German  Emperor  to  arbitrate  his  quarrel  with 
Venezuela,  unless  he  preferred  to  fight.  Probably 
it  would  have  been  better  for  the  peace  and  welfare 
of  mankind  if  William  II  had  decided  to  fight  then, 


JOHN  HAY'S  POLICY  113 

because  he  was  certain  to  have  been  beaten;  but 
he  was  too  wary  to  risk  plunging  the  world  into 
war  until  he  knew  that  Germany  was  wholly  pre- 
pared, and  supposed  that  his  unsuspecting  neigh- 
bours would  be  easy  victims.  The  upshot  of  the 
Venezuela  transaction  was  that  the  United  States 
Government  proved  itself  determined  to  defend 
the  Monroe  Doctrine  against  all  comers,  and  that 
Germany  having  failed  to  land  troops  on  American 
soil  relied  thereafter  on  craft  instead  of  on  force 
for  her  conquest  of  the  American  Continent. 

That  John  Hay  was  right  in  thinking  that  our 
people  must  face  the  future  hand  in  hand  with  the 
people  of  the  British  Empire,  or  that  the  civiliza- 
tion from  which  both  spring  and  by  which  both 
live  would  go  down,  had  been  demonstrated  years 
before  he  died.  Long  before  the  Atrocious  War, 
German  officers  at  their  public  banquets  drank 
their  toast  to  "The  Day" — "the  day"  when  they 
should  destroy  the  British  Fleet  and,  by  controlling 
British  sea  power,  control  the  world.  Years  before 
Hay  died  German  professors  were  conducting  their 
sly  and  despicable  propaganda  from  Harvard  and 
other  American  universities,  and  hordes  of  other 
tools  of  the  Kaiser  were  at  work  honeycombing 
this  country  with  deceit,  falsehood,  and  sedition 
to  make  smooth  his  path  here. 


ii4  VOLLEYS  FROM  A  NON-COMBATANT 

Hay's  belief  in  Anglo-Saxonism,  his  diplomacy 
which  assumed  that  British  and  American  friend- 
ship is  indispensable,  and  his  own  character, 
with  its  staunchness  and  urbanity,  making  friendly 
dealings  natural,  were  and  will  remain  among  the 
noteworthy  factors  in  our  national  life.  His  at- 
titude was  prophetic. 

The  war  has  taught  us  that  there  is  in  Central 
Europe  a  strong  and  populous  nation  which  does  not 
believe  in  individual  rights — that  it  does  not  believe 
in  any  right,  any  duty,  any  pledge,  any  obligation 
toward  other  peoples;  that  war  is  the  normal  state 
of  man;  that  the  purpose  of  an  army  is  to  devastate 
and  conquer  neighbouring  countries  and  to  carry 
away  all  the  portable  wealth,  as  the  footpad  holds 
up  and  robs  his  victim  of  his  watch  and  purse. 

This  nation  repudiates  the  claims  of  chivalry  and 
of  mercy,  and  even  more  damning  than  its  cruelty 
is  its  deceit.  At  the  head  of  this  nation  stands  an 
irresponsible  autocrat  who  boasts  that  he  grasps 
in  the  hollow  of  his  hand  the  mind,  body,  and  soul 
of  every  creature  in  his  empire  and  whose  bidding 
is  done  by  generals,  admirals,  parsons,  and  profes- 
sors of  his  own  appointing.  This  is  the  nation 
that  enslaves  and  carries  away  the  conquered 
young  men  and  young  women  to  suffer  privations, 
shame,  and  unspeakable  outrage. 


JOHN  HAY'S  POLICY  115 

Anglo-Saxonism  denies  the  Autocrat  and  his 
system.  Freedom  is  its  pole-star.  It  proclaims 
the  right  of  every  human  being  to  life  and  oppor- 
tunity; and  as  it  broadens  the  scope  of  every  in- 
dividual so  it  expects  from  him  in  return  a  keener 
sense  of  public  duty.  The  nations  which  have 
been  inspired  by  the  Anglo-Saxon  ideal  may  have 
committed  many  grievous  sins,  but  they  have 
never  sunk  to  the  lowest  sin  of  all — that  of  embrac- 
ing the  Teutonic  ideal.  We  call  Justice,  Mercy, 
Veracity,  Honour,  and  Reverence  for  one's  plighted 
word  Anglo-Saxon  ideals,  because  during  a  thou- 
sand years  they  have  been  embodied  in  the  Anglo- 
Saxon  peoples,  and  in  spite  of  all  shortcomings 
they  have  shaped,  little  by  little,  the  political  and 
social  life  of  those  peoples.  But  they  are  no  more 
a  monopoly  of  the  Anglo-Saxons  than  is  the  mul- 
tiplication table;  they  belong  to  whomsoever  be- 
lieves in  them  and  makes  them  his  guide. 

The  final  product  of  autocracy  is  to  convert 
man  into  a  machine;  the  final  product  of  democracy 
is  to  set  free  the  soul  in  even  the  most  clod-like 
man.  For  John  Hay — and  for  whomsoever  believes 
as  he  did  in  democracy — Abraham  Lincoln  and  not 
Frederick  the  Great,  much  less  William  II,  typifies 
the  true  guardian  of  civilization;  the  leader  of 
mankind  to  a  higher  state  than  it  has  ever  attained. 


ii6  VOLLEYS  FROM  A  NON-COMBATANT 

In  1900,  during  the  Boer  War,  John  Hay  wrote 
to  Senator  Lodge  deploring  the  apparent  decadence 
of  England  as  a  righting  nation,  and  he  added  that 
if  England  went  down  and  Germany  and  Russia 
made  an  arrangement — which  the  German  Emperor 
was  then  plotting  secretly  to  do — the  balance 
would  be  lost  for  ages.  Coming  just  at  the  ap- 
proach of  a  crisis  to  civilization  more  definite  than 
any  other  in  history,  Hay  distinguished  clearly 
between  the  partisans  of  Moloch  and  the  partisans 
of  Christ,  and  he  did  his  utmost  to  promote  the 
cause  of  Christ.  For  this,  posterity  will  always 
hold  him  in  gratitude;  for  this  he  will  rank  among 
the  American  statesmen  whose  fame  lives  after 
them. 


BEWARE  OF  A  JUDAS  PEACE1 

F  I^HE  fact  cannot  be  too  often  remembered  that 
J-  though  the  Prussianized  Germans  have  had 
the  reputation  of  being  the  master  war  makers  of 
the  modern  age  they  have  in  the  atrocious  conflict 
which  they  forced  upon  the  world  in  August,  1914, 
won  more  by  deceit  than  by  arms.  This  will 
probably  astonish  posterity  more  than  it  seems 
to  astonish  us.  If  we  discovered  that  the  cham- 
pion prize  fighter  had  conquered  his  adversaries 
by  low  trickery — by  poisoning  their  food,  let  us 
say,  or  by  tripping  them  up,  or  by  throwing 
pepper  in  their  eyes — instead  of  by  fair  fight- 
ing, we  should  know  how  to  rate  him.  Indeed, 
no  bruiser  could  win  the  championship  by  such 
means;  for  in  the  ring  there  is  an  etiquette  that 
forbids  striking  below  the  belt,  and  the  contestant 
who  disobeys  is  ruled  out.  The  German  war 
code,  however,  recognizes  no  etiquette;  the  Prus- 
sians, deaf  alike  to  shame  and  to  honour,  permit 
themselves  every  license  and  refrain  from  no 

•     Saturday  Evening  Post,  February  16,  1918. 

II? 


ii8  VOLLEYS  FROM  A  NON-COMBATANT 

inhumanity.  They  boast  of  making  "Anything 
to  win"  their  motto. 

It  is  not  by  accident  that  the  Prussian,  who  has 
been  for  a  century  the  bully  of  Europe,  is  also  the 
chief  sneak  among  modern  peoples.  The  bully 
is  usually  a  coward,  and  sneaking  is  the  coward's 
natural  practice.  We  have  already  heard  more  than 
once  from  the  Prussians  the  cowardly  whimper 
when  the  Allies  retaliated  by  inflicting  on  them  the 
punishment  they  had  exulted  in  applying  first  to  the 
Allies.  The  submarine — unlawfully  used,  the  most 
.despicable  weapon  ever  employed  by  man — fitly 
symbolizes  the  modern  German  at  war;  its  very 
essence  is  deceit.  The  nation  that  stoops  to  employ 
such  a  weapon  illegitimately  will,  as  a  matter  of 
course,  shrink  from  no  other  practice  of  deceit — or 
of  cruelty;  and  so  we  find,  as  I  just  now  asserted, 
that  the  Germans  have  thus  far  won  more  by 
deceit  than  by  arms. 

Look  at  the  situation  at  the  end  of  1917,  after 
the  war  has  been  carried  on  for  three  years  and  a 
half.  What  has  been  Germany's  really  important 
conquest  in  this  struggle?  It  has  been  Russia. 
And  how  has  she  conquered  Russia?  Not  by  war- 
fare, but  by  corruption.  In  the  beginning  the 
Russian  armies,  though  inferior  to  the  German  in 
military  fitness  and  in  morale,  had  the  upper  hand 


BEWARE  OF  A  JUDAS  PEACE          119 

in  East  Prussia.  Then  a  sort  of  paralysis  seemed 
to  blight  them,  and  the  German  generals,  who  had 
retreated  from  them  at  the  start,  overwhelmed 
them  at  the  Masurian  Lakes. 

Subsequently  we  have  learned  that  this  paraly- 
sis, which  became  chronic,  was  caused  by  treachery, 
and  treachery  was  caused  by  German  bribes.  The 
extent  to  which  this  agency  was  carried  may 
never  be  known,  but  enough  is  surely  known  to 
blacken  forever  the  German  record.  The  Kaiser's 
bribers,  acting  like  the  germs  of  a  disease  which 
slowly  infects  a  people  and  destroys  not  only  their 
physical  vigour  but  their  moral  health,  penetrated 
into  every  part  of  Russian  society.  The  chief 
advisers  of  the  Czar,  the  very  members  of  his 
household,  his  ministers,  his  generals,  admirals, 
and  subalterns,  were  all  polluted  by  Prussian  gold 
or  by  Prussian  guile.  Industry  and  trade  were 
stealthily  Prussianized.  German  capital  flowed 
like  a  pestilent  stream  through  the  main  channels 
of  banking  and  commerce.  Western  Russia  was 
covertly  overrun  by  German  colonists,  and  even  a 
great  manufacturing  city  like  Lodz,  "the  Russian 
Manchester,"  sprang  up  under  the  spell  of  Teu- 
tonic promotion. 

The  result  of  this  general  peaceful  penetration, 
as  the  Germans  slyly  called  it,  of  Russia  appeared 


120  VOLLEYS  FROM  A  NON-COMBATANT 

in  the  second  campaign  of  the  war.  The  Russian 
armies  in  the  early  spring  of  1915  made  a  great 
drive  into  Galicia;  they  took  Przemysl  and  other 
strongholds,  and,  with  high  hopes  but  much  im- 
prudence, they  rushed  on  through  the  Carpathian 
passes  into  Hungary.  The  Austrians  seemed  on 
the  point  of  collapsing  when  Germany  sent  Mack- 
ensen  to  save  them.  This  he  did  not  so  much  by 
the  powerful  forces  with  which  he  battered  the 
Russians  as  through  their  deficiency  in  ammuni- 
tion. In  less  than  two  months  the  Germans  had 
disposed  of  Russia  for  that  year. 

In  1916  the  Russians  made  another  promising 
start.  Then  there  followed  the  inevitable  slowing 
up,  unexplained  at  the  time  and  puzzling  to  out- 
side observers;  and  finally  there  was  another 
disaster.  It  has  since  leaked  out  that  from  the 
beginning  of  the  war  the  checks,  the  delays,  and 
the  failures  were  owing  directly  to  Russian  officials, 
corrupted  by  the  Kaiser's  reptilian  creatures. 
Large  appropriations  were  made  for  uniforms, 
rations,  munitions,  and  means  of  transportation; 
but  the  armies  in  the  field  were  often  left  without 
food  or  powder;  trainloads  of  shells  were  sent  off 
to  some  distant  place  and  sidetracked;  regiments 
actually  went  to  the  front  without  rifles  and  with- 
out uniforms — to  be  armed  and  clothed,  if  at  all, 


BEWARE  OF  A  JUDAS  PEACE         121 

with  the  guns  and  uniforms  of  the  men  killed  in 
action. 

The  largest  munition  factory  in  the  Empire 
was  blown  up,  with  the  connivance,  it  is  said,  of 
Germans  connected  with  it.  The  wonder  is  that 
really  able  military  commanders,  like  the  Grand 
Duke  Nicholas  and  General  Brusiloff,  held  out  as 
long  as  they  did  and  proved  that  even  amid  the 
uncertainty  of  feeding  and  equipping  their  armies 
they  could  confront  the  Teutons  opposed  to  them. 
Only  when  there  were  no  more  cartridges  for  the 
rifles  and  no  more  shells  for  the  cannon  did  they 
give  way;  and  even  in  the  retreat  they  showed 
their  skill  by  saving  their  armies. 

The  German  corrupters  were  not  satisfied,  how- 
ever, with  paralyzing  the  fighting  power  of  Russia. 
A  victory  in  the  field  tickled  the  vanity  of  the 
war-mad  Germans  at  home,  but  it  really  concluded 
nothing;  for  if  the  Russian  armies  held  together 
they  might  go  on  retreating  as  fast  as  the  Germans 
caught  up  with  them,  and  so  entice  the  enemy 
far  enough  from  his  base  to  work  his  destruction. 
Their  ancestors  had  successfully  used  that  strategy 
against  Napoleon  in  1812,  and  the  Germans  had  no 
intention  of  being  entrapped  by  it.  They  there- 
fore set  about  corrupting  the  Russian  people,  who 
furnished  the  material  for  the  Russian  armies. 


122  VOLLEYS  FROM  A  NON-COMBATANT 

By  the  autumn  of  1916  they  felt  so  sure  of  their 
results  that  they  declared  very  confidently  that 
Russia  would  be  out  of  it  by  the  spring  .of  1917. 
How  far  the  deposition  of  the  Czar  entered  into 
their  plan  and  how  far  they  abetted  and  directed 
it  we  cannot  yet  say. 

It  may  be  argued  that  the  Czar  himself  had  been 
so  compliant  up  to  that  time,  and  his  ministers  and 
other  officials  had  so  punctually  betrayed  Russia 
and  the  Russian  armies  according  to  the  bargain 
made  with  German  agents,  that  the  Kaiser  might 
have  thought  it  superfluous  to  oust  his  "dear 
cousin  Nicky."  A  man  does  not  need  to  be  the 
Kaiser  in  order  to  perceive  that  the  autocrat  who 
conspires  to  destroy  a  brother  autocrat  engages 
in  a  risky  business,  since  he  teaches  how  any 
autocracy — including  his  own — may  be  abolished. 
On  the  other  hand,  the  utter  subserviency  to 
Germany  of  the  leaders  of  the  Bolsheviki,  who  have 
latterly  dominated  the  Revolution,  justifies  the 
belief  that  the  Kaiser  did  indeed  instigate  the 
downfall  of  the  Czar  and  bought  up  the  lowest 
dregs  in  Russia  to  accomplish  the  Revolution  which 
swept  away  the  Romanoff  Dynasty  in  March, 
1917. 

Judging  by  the  situation  at  the  end  of  December, 
1917,  the  Kaiser  can  declare  that  a  corruption  fund 


BEWARE  OF  A  JUDAS  PEACE          123 

was  never  spent  more  completely  to  the  satisfac- 
tion of  the  corrupter  than  that  which  he  distributed 
among  the  Bolsheviki.  They  did  his  bidding  to 
the  last  scrape  of  shameless  servility.  Not  only 
did  they  stop  active  military  operations,  but  they 
abandoned  even  the  semblance  of  carrying  on  the 
war;  they  disbanded  the  armies;  they  virtually 
invited  the  Germans  to  enter  Russia  to  do  what 
they  pleased  and  to  take  what  they  would.  Never 
before  in  all  history  has  any  group  of  men  sunk  to 
such  a  shameless  depth  of  turpitude. 

Shameless?  They  have  no  notion  of  what 
shame  is.  History  brands  indelibly  on  its  eternal 
scroll  the  names  of  detested  traitors;  but  these 
men,  insensible  alike  to  loyalty  and  to  patriotism, 
betray  with  no  more  remorse  than  is  felt  by  the 
viper  envenoming  its  innocent  victims.  A  peddler 
would  treat  a  bundle  of  rags  with  more  considera- 
tion than  they  have  shown  in  giving  away  their 
Mother  Russia  to  her  inveterate  foe. 

The  peace  which,  at  the  instigation  of  Berlin, 
they  would  palm  off  on  the  world  is  a  Judas  peace. 
Which  is  the  more  odious,  the  seducer  or  his  victim  ? 
The  world  long  ago  passed  its  verdict  on  this  ques- 
tion. Depraved  as  the  Bolsheviki  are,  the  Prus- 
sian Kaiser  and  the  underlings  who  only  too 
thoroughly  obeyed  his  instructions  are  still  more 


i24  VOLLEYS  FROM  A  NON-COMBATANT 

depraved.  The  world  does  not  even  yet  sufficiently 
abhor  the  deceit  of  the  Germans,  which  has  been 
for  more  than  a  quarter  of  a  century  at  work 
deliberately  poisoning  and  debasing  the  people 
in  those  countries  which  the  Kaiser  and  his  evil 
ring  had  secretly  resolved  to  conquer  or  control. 
They  have  studied  the  temperament  of  each 
victim  and  have  applied  to  each  the  corrupter 
whom  they  believed  most  efficacious:  A  sancti- 
monious professor  for  unsuspecting,  frank  Ameri- 
cans of  intelligence;  imperial  blandishments  for 
American  millionaires  and  toadies;  mere  vulgar 
money,  even  small  change,  for  fellows  of  the  baser 
sort.  They  find  out  the  weak  point,  the  vanity, 
the  devil's  lurking  place  in  each,  and  there  they 
sow  the  microbes  of  their  depravity;  there  they 
undermine;  there,  if  need  be,  they  stab  clan- 
destinely. The  Kultur  which  the  Germans  boast 
of  is  the  culture  of  bacteria  which  infect  and  destroy 
the  soul. 

Eighty  years  ago,  before  the  Prussian  virus  had 
infected  German  arteries,  German  poets  and 
theorists  amused  themselves  over  the  conundrum, 
"Is  Germany  Hamlet?"  The  present  war  has 
brought  a  true  and  terrible  answer:  "Germany 
is  Judas."  Let  the  world  be  not  betrayed  into 
perdition  by  its  Judas  peace-kiss. 


BEWARE  OF  A  JUDAS  PEACE    125 

Every  war  begets  its  own  vocabulary.  Camou- 
flage is  the  word  which,  specially  employed  by 
the  French  in  this  war,  has  passed  into  general  use 
in  all  languages.  It  means,  first  of  all,  a  disguise 
with  intent  to  deceive.  Along  roads  where  their 
troops  and  supply  trains  had  to  pass  within  sight 
of  the  German  guns  the  French  scene-painters 
spread  large  screens  of  canvas  on  which  they 
daubed  landscapes  or  bushes  and  trees;  or  the 
French  masked  their  batteries  by  heaping  over 
them  a  tangle  of  leafy  boughs;  or  perhaps  they 
converted  an  innocent  looking  haystack  into  a 
sentinel's  shelter.  All  the  belligerents  employed 
the  device;  but  it  was  the  Germans  who  earliest 
and  most  persistently  adopted  camouflage  to  hide 
their  political  and  moral  weapons. 

At  first  they  used  it  rather  clumsily.  Re- 
member how,  for  instance,  they  wished  to  make  us 
believe,  three  years  ago,  that  Prussian  militarism 
was  not,  after  all,  a  whit  worse  than  British  naval- 
ism.  Even  now  they  repeat,  parrot-like,  the 
phrase  "freedom  of  the  seas";  which  has  an 
impressive  sound,  particularly  for  the  nine  persons 
out  of  ten  who  have  never  taken  the  trouble  to 
think  what  it  means.  The  facts  that,  ever  since 
the  foundation  of  the  German  Empire,  German 
ships  have  gone  unimpeded  all  over  the  world, 


126  VOLLEYS  FROM  A  NON-COMBATANT 

German  commerce  has  increased  at  a  much  larger 
ratio  than  that  of  any  other  nation,  and  German 
products  have  been  freely  landed  at  every  port — 
including  every  British  port  in  both  hemispheres- 
prove  that  the  German  pretense  that  the  seas  are 
not  free  to  her  are  utterly  hollow. 

Not  less  awkward  were  the  Germans  in  their 
outcry  against  the  sale  by  Americans  of  munitions 
and  supplies.  Camouflage,  pure  camouflage,  very 
unskillfully  applied,  was  all  that;  and  it  had  that 
touch  of  effrontery  which  marks  Prussian  dealings. 
International  law  not  only  permitted  but  legalized 
such  traffic;  the  Prussian  Krupp  works  had  done  a 
thriving  business  for  generations  in  selling  their 
guns  and  shells  to  every  belligerent  who  ordered; 
of  course,  also  the  Germans  would  greedily  have 
taken  all  that  we  would  have  sent  if  it  could  have 
reached  them.  They  had  no  qualms  against 
accepting  the  copper,  cotton,  and  other  materials 
of  war  which  they  could  smuggle  through  Switzer- 
land, Holland,  and  Denmark — those  buffer  states 
which  served  as  a  lifebelt  for  Germany,  preventing 
her  from  perishing  by  a  blockade. 

And  then  there  was  the  camouflage  about  the 
blockade  itself — the  cruelty  of  starving  non- 
belligerent children  and  women.  As  if  the  Ger- 
mans had  not  used  the  blockade  where  it  was 


BEWARE  OF  A  JUDAS  PEACE         127 

feasible  in  every  war  they  had  fought  and  as  if 
they,  the  Huns  of  the  modern  world,  had  shown 
any  mercy  to  defenseless  women  and  children  when 
they  first  violated  the  Belgian  frontier!  Camou- 
flage ?  That  is  too  highsounding  a  name,  too  re- 
spectable for  such  transparent  humbug. 

And  what  but  humbug  was  the  whimper  over 
milk  for  German  babies?  We  were  told  that  a 
German  submarine  was  coming  over  to  take  home 
a  cargo  of  powdered  milk;  but  when  the  submarine 
did  come  it  loaded  all  the  rubber  and  nickel  it 
could  carry  and  sailed  off  with  those  instead. 

Some  persons  who  declare  that  many  new 
phrases  merely  mask  old  things  or  old  doings 
which  are  sufficiently  described  by  old  familiar 
names  will  perhaps  insist  that  "camouflage"  is  a 
new-fangled  word,  not  needed  for  these  German  per- 
formances, which  are  quite  accurately  described  by 
the  unambiguous  "lie"  or  the  ancient  "hypocrisy." 

We  must  not  flatter  ourselves  that  these  and 
similar  German  falsehoods  are  so  thin  that  every- 
body can  see  through  them  and  so  prevent  them 
from  doing  the  harm  intended.  We  have  all  heard 
befogged  or  seduced  persons  arguing  in  behalf  of 
the  German  contentions;  and  it  was  wonderful 
how  many  editorial  writers  found  much  to  say  on 
that  side — wonderful,  until  the  list  of  some  of  the 


128   VOLLEYS  FROM  A  NON-COMBATANT 

newspapers  subsidized  by  German  gold  was  dis- 
covered and  published.  Almost  anybody  whose 
memory  dates  from  more  than  two  years  back 
can  remember  how,  between  the  crashing  of  one 
tornado  and  another  across  the  prairies,  there 
came  a  roar  of  words  from  the  Middle  West,  and 
we  learned  that  the  Boy  Orator  of  the  Platte  was 
pouring  forth  orations  to  commend  the  Kaiser's 
dreams.  And  did  not  the  New  York  papers  print 
long  lists  of  subscriptions  to  the  German  babies' 
milk  fund?  Where  is  the  money  now?  And  is 
the  percentage  of  American  sanity  so  high  that 
not  a  single  American  repeated  the  damnable 
German  argument  that  it  was  right  to  sink  the 
Lusitania,  and  with  it  about  twelve  hundred 
non-combatant  women  and  children  and  neutral 
men,  because  they  said  she  was  loaded  with  arms 
which  would  kill  German  troops  in  battle? 

These  and  other  essays  in  deceit  pale,  however, 
before  the  great  German  camouflage — the  camou- 
flage of  Peace.  To  the  reasoning  eye  this  seems 
so  absurd  as  not  to  be  worth  resorting  to,  except 
on  the  theory  that  everybody  requires  a  certain 
interlude  of  farce  amid  the  serious  business  of  life. 
Abraham  Lincoln,  burdened  with  the  destiny  of 
democracy  in  America,  read  Artemus  Ward's 
funny  sketches  at  his  cabinet  meetings.  The 


BEWARE  OF  A  JUDAS  PEACE    129 

German  farceurs  have  no  idea  that  they  are  funny; 
on  the  contrary,  they  are  dead  in  earnest  and  expect 
to  be  taken  so.  They  know,  as  we  all  do,  that 
words  have  a  hypnotic  effect  and  that  by  repeating 
them  often  enough  the  effect  can  be  attained. 
There  comes  a  time  in  the  course  of  a  long  war 
when  the  armies  in  the  field  and  the  nations  behind 
the  armies  grow  weary,  and  then  if  the  word 
"Peace"  be  repeated  in  their  ears  they  begin  to 
forget  the  obstacles  in  the  way  of  Peace — to  regard 
it  as  more  important  than  anything  else  on  earth — 
and  to  demand  that  it  be  given  to  them  im- 
mediately. What  matter  terms  when  the  thing 
itself  is  so  supremely  precious  ?  Why  bicker  over 
this  or  that  detail?  Peace  will  take  care  of  all 
details. 

To  rely  upon  an  appeal  to  mob  spirit — for  that 
is  what  the  Germans  really  do  with  their  peace 
camouflage — is  often  dangerous;  because  peoples, 
like  individuals,  are  most  comfortably  and  safely 
dealt  with  through  their  reason.  If  you  make  a 
man  hysterical  in  order  to  get  something  out  of 
him  which  he  would  refuse  in  his  normal  state,  he 
may  act  quite  differently  from  what  you  plan. 
Hysteria,  like  fire,  may  be  easily  caused,  but  it  is 
hard  to  check,  hard  to  quench,  and  very  hard  to 
direct.  And  in  this  case  the  Kaiser  and  his  ring 


130  VOLLEYS  FROM  A  NON-COMBATANT 

would  not  clutch  at  so  questionable  a  weapon  as 
international  hypnotism  unless  they  felt  sure  that 
the  Germans  themselves  would  not  fall  victims  to 
it.  The  Kaiser  plotted  the  dissolution  of  Russia 
through  the  infamous  agency  of  the  Bolsheviki, 
but  he  did  not  for  a  moment  intend  or  expect  that 
his  German  Bolsheviki  at  home  should  follow  this 
example  and  dissolve  Imperial  Germany — autocrat, 
Junkers,  servants  of  frightfulness,  and  all. 

The  Kaiser's  first  gesture  in  his  peace  move  was 
directed  toward  the  German  nation.  In  the  middle 
of  1916  he  informed  his  obsequious  subjects,  and 
incidentally  the  world,  that  Germany  had  won  the 
war,  and  that  only  the  wickedness  of  his  enemies 
prevented  them  from  perceiving  that  they  were 
beaten.  For  some  reason  beyond  the  reach  of 
German  psychology  they  persisted  in  keeping  up 
the  fight  just  as  if  they  had  not  already  lost  it,  and 
even  after  they  had  heard  the  Kaiser's  gracious 
announcement  they  went  on  with  redoubled  efforts. 
What  the  docile  German — who  accepts  the  Kaiser's 
utterances  as  the  sum  of  all  law,  gospel,  and 
science — thought  of  this  we  cannot  surmise. 

If  you  are  wrestling  with  a  man  and  he  throws 
you,  but  you  both  grapple  so  fiercely  that  neither 
can  break  loose,  how  much  heed  do  you  pay  to  him 
when  he  whispers  frantically  "Stop!  You're 


BEWARE  OF  A  JUDAS  PEACE          131 

dead  V  ?  In  previous  wars  the  Germans  had  taken 
care  that  their  enemies  were  in  fact  dead  before 
they  issued  their  bulletins  of  victory.  How  much 
satisfaction  the  German  nation  derived  from  the 
Kaiser's  false  statements  does  not  appear,  but  it 
has  swallowed  so  many  other  lies  that  it  probably 
relished  this.  Did  it  not  exult  with  proper  zeal 
when  the  Kaiser  announced,  after  his  fleet  had 
scuttled  off  out  of  range  of  the  British  guns  at  the 
Battle  of  Jutland,  that  he  was  Lord  High  Admiral 
of  the  Atlantic? 

The  Allies,  however,  though  they  have  made 
many  mistakes,  have  never  supposed  that  the  war 
could  be  won  by  talk,  and  they  had  an  irreverent 
sense  of  humour  which  left  them  unmoved  by  the 
Kaiser's  bombast.  It  happened,  also,  that  the 
summer  of  1916  was  particularly  unfavourable 
for  any  assertion  of  German  invincibility;  because 
since  February  in  that  year  the  Germans  had  hurled 
immense  masses  of  their  best  men,  supported  by 
such  a  strength  of  artillery  as  had  never  until  then 
been  assembled,  in  an  effort  to  take  Verdun. 
Month  after  month  the  barbarians  battered; 
month  after  month  the  French  held  firm.  Even 
the  consideration  that  Verdun  was  needed  in  order 
to  establish  the  military  glory  of  the  despised 
German  Crown  Prince  failed  to  stir  the  traditionally 


132  VOLLEYS  FROM  A  NON-COMBATANT 

polite  Frenchmen  to  give  way.  If  the  skulls 
of  the  multitude  of  Germans  butchered  there  to 
make  the  Crown  Prince's  holiday  had  been  built  in 
a  pyramid,  its  top  would  have  surpassed  the  highest 
of  the  hills  which  guarded  the  wrecked  city.  One 
wonders  whether  the  parents  of  each  of  these 
victims  of  Hohenzollern  ambition  were  really 
cheated  by  the  Kaiser's  bluff. 

Nevertheless,  in  the  autumn,  thanks  to  treachery 
which  paralyzed  the  Rumanians,  the  Germans 
could  plume  themselves  on  a  spectacular  success 
in  the  southeast,  and  the  Kaiser  seized  the  occasion 
for  making  a  formal  offer  of  peace  to  his  enemies. 
He  wished  to  do  so  not  merely  as  an  act  of  grace 
but  in  order  to  show  his  love  of  peace  itself,  and  of 
humanity,  and  of  good  will.  It  was  much  as  if  the 
head  master  of  a  school  should  offer  to  forgive  and 
take  back  a  band  of  obstreperous  boys  who  had 
rebelled  and  run  away — boys  who  were  to  be 
pitied  for  not  realizing  that  the  master  was  om- 
nipotent and  that  they  were  very  silly  in  imagining 
that  they  could  successfully  defy  his  power.  The 
Kaiser  intimated  that  if  the  Allies  refused  his 
terms  he  would  fight  until  they  had  nothing  to 
expect  from  him  except  a  demand  for  their  absolute 
surrender.  Perverse  that  they  were,  instead  of 
thanking  him  they  rather  inclined  to  make  merry 


BEWARE  OF  A  JUDAS  PEACE         133 

over  his  pomposity,  and  though  they  felt  acutely 
the  Rumanian  breakdown  they  simply  prepared  to 
wage  the  war  more  resolutely. 

Did  the  Kaiser  expect  that  his  offer  at  Christmas, 
1916,  would  be  accepted?  Hardly.  ...  He 
was  merely  indulging  in  camouflage.  Friends  and 
foes  alike  had  come  to  think  of  Germany  as  a  nation 
of  soldiers;  that  it  was  bent  on  destroying  France, 
on  smashing  England,  and  with  it  the  Imperial 
British  sea  power  which  stood  impregnably  between 
the  German  dream  of  world  empire  and  its  realiza- 
tion. Even  quiet  peoples,  Americans  in  both 
hemispheres  for  instance,  regarded  German  mili- 
tarism with  alarm,  and  it  was  clear  that  they,  too, 
might  rise  up  and  join  the  crusade  against  the  Hun. 
How  could  the  Kaiser  more  naturally  allay  alarm 
and  divert  attention  from  his  real  purpose  than 
by  his  camouflage,  which  depicted  him  first  as  a 
lover  of  peace,  and  hinted  next  that  he  had  no 
intention  of  exacting  the  ruin  of  any  of  his  enemies, 
or  of  demanding  indemnities,  or  even  of  keeping 
the  foreign  territory  his  armies  had  occupied? 

Peace,  evermore  peace,  that  was  his  watchword, 
that  was  the  suggestion  by  which  he  schemed  to 
hypnotize  an  unwary  world.  If  the  peoples  could 
be  brought  to  think  of  him,  not  as  an  ogre  who 
delighted  in  blood  and  havoc,  but  as  the  benevolent 


i34  VOLLEYS  FROM  A  NON-COMBATANT 

autocrat  who  yearned  to  see  his  enemies  beat  their 
swords  into  plowshares,  he  would  take  a  long  stride 
toward  securing  his  ends.  He  did  not  hesitate  to 
turn  against  the  Allies  the  very  words  they  had 
applied  to  him.  They  were  war-mad  conquerors; 
they  were  swollen  with  ambition;  they  were  so 
fired  by  war  lust  that  they  could  not  be  appeased 
except  by  destroying  Germany  and  devouring  her 
peace-loving  folk. 

Very  pretty  disavowals  and  surprising  insinua- 
tions! But  methinks  the  Kaiser  did  protest  too 
much.  What  was  his  plot?  What  did  his  cam- 
ouflage hide  with  intent  to  deceive?  His  secret 
purpose  has  been  dissected  with  a  surgeon's  skill 
and  dispassionateness  by  M.  Andre  Cheradame, 
and  I  will  content  myself  here  with  only  an  outline 
of  his  conclusions. 

During  the  long  years  in  which  Germany  slowly 
matured  her  wicked  plot  against  civilization  she 
came  to  see  that  she  might  achieve  world  power 
in  one  of  two  ways :  First,  she  might  by  a  sudden 
spring  overthrow  and  annihilate  France,  and  then 
by  turning  swiftly  to  the  east  she  might  break 
down  Russia.  These  two  strokes  would  leave 
her  mistress  of  Europe;  but  in  order  to  secure  and 
complete  her  supremacy  she  must  defeat  England, 
and  this  she  counted  on  doing  in  a  very  few  years 


BEWARE  OF  A  JUDAS  PEACE          135 

after  she  had  defeated  the  Continental  Powers. 
Her  second  choice  was  embodied  in  her  Middle 
Europe  scheme,  by  which  she  meant  to  control 
Austria,  the  Balkans,  and  Turkey  on  both  sides 
of  the  Bosphorus,  and  to  push  her  dominion 
through  Asia  Minor  and  down  to  Bagdad  in  Persia. 

Her  Middle  Europe  project  might  be  attained, 
it  will  be  observed,  without  going  to  war  at  all; 
it  required  only  friendly  relations  of  "the  most- 
favoured-nation"  sort  between  Germany  and  the 
countries  which  lay  to  the  south  of  her,  from 
Austria  to  Persia.  She  would  build  railroads 
connecting  Hamburg  and  Bagdad,  over  which 
her  products  should  be  sent  to  vast  populations. 
Germans  would  colonize  the  rich  lands  in  Anatolia 
and  Mesopotamia,  and  carry  out  the  process  of 
peaceful  penetration  in  which  they  had  proved 
themselves  experts.  The  only  impediment  in  the 
way  of  her  triumphal  progress  was  Serbia,  through 
which  her  route  had  to  pass  before  she  could  reach 
Turkey. 

Such  were  her  two  plans.  The  first  appealed 
to  the  piratical  inheritance  of  the  Hohenzollerns 
and  to  the  common  German  appetite  for  war.  The 
second  appealed  to  the  German  instinct  of  cupidity, 
to  the  desire  to  extend  her  commerce  and  to  in- 
crease her  wealth — that  instinct  embodied  in  Bal- 


i36  VOLLEYS  FROM  A  NON-COMBATANT 

lin  and  the  other  German  captains  of  industry 
who  pursue  financial  gain  as  ruthlessly  as  the 
German  General  Staff  conducts  war. 

When  the  Kaiser  forced  war  upon  the  world  in 
August,  1914,  he  expected  to  accomplish  his  first 
plan.  But  the  brave  Belgians  at  Liege  checked 
the  momentum  of  his  drive,  and  Joffre — sublime 
in  patience,  foresight,  and  courage — shattered 
that  plan  forever  in  the  Battle  of  the  Marne.  The 
German  war  logically  ended  there.  The  Kaiser 
had  been  defeated,  but  though  his  plan  had 
collapsed  he  believed  that  he  could  wear  France 
down  by  slow  fighting  before  the  English  could 
prepare  an  army  adequate  in  size  and  drill  to  come 
to  her  assistance;  and  he  approved  of  the  un- 
speakably horrible  raid  into  Serbia  and  of  the 
campaigns  against  the  Slavs  on  the  east.  He 
knew — and  there  is  no  excuse  why  everybody  in 
the  world  should  not  have  known  for  three  years 
past — that  the  vital  point  where  the  conflict  must 
be  decided  was  in  Flanders  and  eastern  France. 
He  tried  unsuccessfully  to  sweep  through  Flanders 
to  Calais  while  only  small  forces  of  English  held 
that  section.  He  tried  most  desperately  again 
and  again  to  inundate  the  French  at  Verdun  before 
the  great  English  army  had  crossed  the  Channel, 
but  he  failed.  The  upshot  of  all  his  campaigning 


BEWARE  OF  A  JUDAS  PEACE    137 

in  the  west  for  nearly  two  years  past  was  the  slow 
withdrawal  of  the  German  army,  unable  even  in 
its  amazingly  fortified  defenses  to  stand  up  before 
the  Tommies  of  England  and  the  poilus  of  France 
with  their  unmatched  artillery. 

Having  devastated  Serbia  and  Montenegro; 
having  overrun  and  devastated  Rumania;  having 
occupied,  partly  through  military  operations  and 
more  through  deceit,  most  of  western  Russia,  the 
Middle  Europe  scheme  loomed  up  most  seductively 
before  the  eyes  of  the  Kaiser  and  his  war  ring.  He 
held  nearly  all  the  elements  of  its  realization  in 
his  hands.  Austria,  Bulgaria,  Turkey,  were  simply 
his  vassals;  Serbia  was  powerless  to  block  his  path; 
he  had  abetted  the  massacre  of  hundreds  of 
thousands  of  Armenians  whereby  he  whetted  the 
Turks'  bloodthirstiness;  above  all,  his  enemies, 
the  Western  Allies,  could  not  strike  him  at  any 
vital  point  along  the  Berlin-to-Bagdad  line.  Eng- 
land had  taken  Bagdad,  to  be  sure,  but  her  hold 
on  it  would  be  precarious  when  the  Middle  Europe 
project  was  organized. 

So  the  Kaiser  strutted  before  the  world  at 
Christmastide,  1916,  as  a  prince  of  peace  graciously 
disposed  to  stop  the  war  on  the  general  terms  of 
no  annexations  and  no  indemnities.  A  few  silly 
persons  exclaimed:  "What  a  kind  soul  he  is!  How 


138  VOLLEYS  FROM  A  NON-COMBATANT 

generous!"  Those  who  were  not  dulled  by  words, 
least  of  all  by  words  sodden  in  German  deceit, 
saw  at  once,  however,  that  if  the  Kaiser  could  get 
peace  on  those  terms  he  would  get  also  Germany's 
second  choice,  the  Middle  Europe  enterprise. 
That  would  mean  that  the  German  Empire,  con- 
trolling its  vassals — Austria,  Bulgaria,  and  the 
Turkish  Empire — would  number  170,000,000  in- 
habitants, from  whom  it  could  conscript  a  standing 
army  of  20,000,000  soldiers.  It  would  have  naval 
control  of  the  Black  Sea  and  the  Adriatic,  and 
of  Constantinople,  the  veritable  metropolis  where 
all  roads  and  all  commerce  from  north  and  south 
and  east  and  west  meet. 

Compared  with  such  a  reservoir  of  wealth  and 
power,  the  acquisition  of  Belgium  seemed  paltry 
indeed.  Germany  had  levied  immense  sums  on 
the  towns  and  provinces  stricken  by  her  in  Belgium, 
France,  and  Russia.  She  had  wrought  incalculable 
damage  by  the  ruin  of  buildings  and  property,  and 
now  she  proposed  to  grant  peace  without  in- 
demnities— without,  that  is,  paying  back  one 
pfennig  of  all  the  billions  of  marks  that  she  owed 
for  damages  which  could  be  paid  for!  Generous 
indeed ! 

In  brief,  for  the  Allies  to  accept  these  terms 
would  imply  that  their  struggle  for  democracy, 


BEWARE  OF  A  JUDAS  PEACE          139 

for  international  justice,  and  for  the  rights  of  small 
nations,  had  failed.  It  would  leave  the  German 
Empire  immeasurably  stronger  than  it  had  been 
in  1914.  It  would  be  tantamount  to  admitting 
that  imperial  piracy  on  the  largest  scale  had 
succeeded.  It  would  bring  no  durable  peace, 
but  would  surely  leave  Germany  in  a  position  to 
renew  war  at  any  time,  with  the  assurance  of 
victory  and  of  world  dominion,  whenever  she 
chose. 

No  genuine  desirer  of  peace  could  for  a  moment 
think  of  accepting  these  terms. 

Let  us  put  the  German  story  in  another  form 
so  as  to  bring  out  more  saliently  its  moral: 

Many  years  ago  there  lived  in  the  mountains 
of  South  Germany  a  family  of  robbers.  They 
were  called  the  Hohenzollerns — "the  high-toll 
takers" — because  they  had  their  lair  high  up 
above  a  pass  from  which  they  could  discover  the 
pack  trains  and  the  single  travellers  toiling  up 
the  slope  on  either  side  and  could  swoop  down  and 
levy  whatever  toll  they  chose  on  the  strangers. 
Thus  by  piracy  they  grew  rich,  and  centuries 
later  they  went  down  into  the  plain  and  by  fighting 
or  by  marriage  they  acquired  much  territory. 

The  instinct  for  plunder  persisted  in  the  Hohen- 
zollern  family,  but  instead  of  robbing  small  parties 


i4o  VOLLEYS  FROM  A  NON-COMBATANT 

of  itinerant  merchants  or  solitary  chapmen  in  the 
old  mountain  pass,  they  now  stole  provinces  and 
states.  They  organized  Prussia,  their  own  state, 
to  be  a  wonderful  agency  for  national  piracy. 
They  looked  over  the  other  German  states,  dis- 
united and  lumberingly  inefficient,  and  saw  that  if 
Prussia  could  dominate  them  she  could  make  of 
them,  under  her  leadership,  a  pirate  empire  of  the 
first  magnitude. 

To  do  this,  however,  required  some  tact,  for 
Austria,  controlled  by  the  German  House  of 
Hapsburg,  also  aspired  to  dominate  the  German 
peoples.  So  Prussia  artfully  wheedled  Austria 
into  joining  her  in  robbing  Denmark  of  nearly  half 
her  land;  and  then  she  picked  a  quarrel  with 
Austria,  defeated  her,  and  stood  out  before  the 
world  as  the  paramount  German  Power. 

To  weld  the  separate  elements  into  a  single 
empire  required  one  more  war.  This  she  easily 
contrived  against  France,  and  by  persuading  her 
German  neighbours  that  the  French  were  really 
bent  on  whipping  Germany  she  secured  them  all 
as  allies  and  with  them  whipped  France.  The 
German  Empire  thus  united  was  bound  together 
by  the  iron  cables  of  Prussia;  and  was  not  merely 
bound  together  but,  before  long,  it  was  Prus- 
sianized. 


BEWARE  OF  A  JUDAS  PEACE         141 

The  instinct  for  piracy  seems  to  be  innate  in  the 
German  temperament;  at  any  rate,  the  Prussians 
soon  succeeded  in  kindling  it  in  Teutons  of  every 
tribe.  There  used  to  be  a  pleasant  tradition  that 
the  South  Germans  and  the  Rhinelanders  were 
gentle,  honest  people,  quite  unlike  the  Prussians, 
but  this  fallacy  will  never  fool  any  one  again. 
During  the  present  war  the  Bavarians  have 
equalled  the  Prussians  in  atrocity,  and  have 
gloated  over  it.  Before  the  war  all  classes  of 
Germans,  from  swaggering  Junkers  to  grovelling 
bootblacks  and  professors,  had  embraced  piracy 
as  their  national  ideal. 

President  Wilson  and  a  good  many  other  Ameri- 
cans have  thought  they  saw  a  generic  difference 
between  the  Kaiser  and  the  German  people;  they 
even  hinted  that  the  German  people  would  secretly 
welcome  any  foreigner  that  would  release  them 
from  their  bondage  to  the  Kaiser.  To  picture 
Germany  as  Andromeda,  living  at  the  mercy  of 
the  Hohenzollern  monster  and  waiting  for  a  possible 
Perseus  to  rescue  her,  does  credit  to  the  poetic  per- 
sons who  cherish  it,  but  it  betrays  their  absolute 
blindness  to  fact;  for  there  is  no  more  difference 
between  the  Kaiser  and  the  Germans  than  be- 
tween tweedledum  and  tweedledee.  Happily,  the 
recent  utterances  of  President  Wilson  and  of 


I42  VOLLEYS  FROM  A  NON-COMBATANT 

Premier  Lloyd  George  indicate  that  they  are  not 
misled  by  specious  lines  of  distinction. 

Piracy  pays!  That  motto,  adopted  long  since 
in  act  by  the  Prussians,  was  accepted  without 
demur  by  the  Germans;  and  in  order  to  prove 
its  truth  they  needed  only  to  follow  the  course 
of  German  expansion  from  the  modest  days  of 
high  toll  taking  in  the  south  to  the  Babylonian 
pomps  of  imperial  Berlin  in  the  north.  We  must 
not  do  the  Germans  the  injustice,  therefore,  to  infer 
that  they  have  had  any  scruples  against  going 
into  the  present  war.  Why  should  they?  They 
knew  that  Germany  had  the  largest  army  in  history 
and  they  counted  on  its  winning  the  largest  spoils. 
When  victory  was  delayed,  owing  to  the  impolite- 
ness of  the  Allies,  they  were  told  by  their  finance 
minister  not  to  worry,  because  the  longer  the  delay 
the  richer  would  be  the  booty;  and  he  cheered  them 
by  assuring  them  that  the  Allies  would  have  to  pay 
indemnities  which  would  make  every  German,  and 
his  children's  children,  rich. 

Still  there  was  a  hitch,  and,  what  was  more,  not 
merely  higher  taxes  and  heavier  burdens  and 
mourning  for  dead  Boches  in  every  household, 
but  an  inconsiderate  gnawing  at  the  stomach — that 
vulgar  and  unpatriotic  organ  which  refused  to  be  ap- 
peased by  the  Kaiser's  promises  of  incalculable  loot. 


BEWARE  OF  A  JUDAS  PEACE          143 

In  his  desperation  the  Kaiser — blocked  from 
military  victory  on  the  western  front,  where  alone 
it  would  have  real  value — turned  to  the  Middle 
Europe  alternative.  To  secure  that  he  needed  only 
peace,  not  war,  and  that  is  why  at  Christmas,  1917, 
he  repeated  his  peace  offer,  but  with  more  camou- 
flage and  more  suspicious  provisos  than  in  1916. 

The  statesmen  of  the  Allies  have  treated  this 
offer  with  the  scorn  which  it  merits,  but  the  public 
is  so  gullible  and  the  propaganda  of  the  pro- 
Germans  and  the  pacifists  is  so  insidious  and 
incessant  that  we  are  likely  to  hear  voices  raised 
in  approval  of  it.  War  weariness  counts  for  much; 
hypnotic  influence  of  words,  as  I  have  already  re- 
marked, counts  for  much  also. 

But  there  never  was  a  crisis  when  it  was  so 
vitally  important  that  men  should  not  mistake 
the  shadow  for  the  substance.  Persons  delude 
themselves  into  thinking  that  peace  is  a  fixed 
condition;  but  to  stop  righting  now  would  not 
mean  peace;  it  would  merely  give  a  truce  to  those 
powers  of  evil  which  remorselessly  plunged  the 
world  into  the  present  war,  to  prepare  for  another 
war  whereby  they  might  win  what  they  have 
missed  in  this  one,  and  dominate  mankind. 

Peace  can  come  only  when  the  conditions  of 
true  peace  are  restored.  Between  1871  and  1914 


i44  VOLLEYS  FROM  A  NON-COMBATANT 

Europe  did  not  enjoy  a  true  peace,  because  every 
day  and  every  hour  of  those  forty-three  years 
Germany  was  equipping  herself  for  the  colossal 
piracy  which  she  openly  engaged  in  four  years  ago. 
Her  European  neighbours  had  dim  forebodings 
of  the  day  of  Armageddon  which  loomed  behind 
all  the  Prussian  policies  and  military  preparations. 

Reckoning  merely  by  the  sordid  measure  of 
money,  it  cost  Europe  at  least  a  billion  dollars  a 
year,  on  the  average,  to  keep  up,  even  partially, 
armaments  to  match  the  German;  and  when  the 
war  ends  and  the  great  bill  is  made  out  to  cover 
its  direct  tangible  expenses,  there  must  be  added 
the  $43,000,000,000  for  the  preliminary  outlay 
Europe  had  to  make  to  protect  itself  against  the 
Hohenzollern  ambition.  There  has  never  been 
anything  in  history  for  which  men  have  paid  so 
dear  as  that  ambition-embodying  German  greed 
and  German  lust  of  power. 

And  in  return  what  has  modern  Germany  given 
the  world  ?  Not  one  poem,  not  a  single  book  of 
high  and  permanent  inspiration,  not  a  painting, 
not  a  statue,  not  even  a  musician  worthy  to  rank 
with  the  German  masters  who  wrote  the  world's 
music  in  the  days  before  the  poison  of  Prussianism 
blighted  the  German  soul. 

Only  when  you  look  straight  at  the  facts  and 


BEWARE  OF  A  JUDAS  PEACE         145 

see  the  cause  of  the  war  will  you  understand  how 
fatuous  it  is  to  babble  of  making  peace  so  long 
as  the  champions  of  wrong  are  left  intact.  The 
struggle  lies  between  two  diametrically  opposed 
and  mutually  destructive  ideals  of  life;  between 
autocracy  (which  believes  that  mankind  are  by 
nature — and,  in  fact,  should  be  the  chattels  of 
a  monarch  who  has  absolute  control  over  their 
life  and  conditions  and  can  put  them  to  death 
when  he  chooses)  and  democracy — (which  believes 
that  the  humblest  individual  possesses  a  soul  which 
he  can  best  develop  in  liberty  only,  and  that  this 
principle  of  freedom  shall  prevail  in  the  dealings 
of  individuals  with  each  other  and  in  the  political, 
religious,  and  social  communities  into  which  they 
group  themselves).  In  its  international  relations 
"Live  and  let  live"  has  been  the  rule  of  democracy; 
but  autocracy  does  not  willingly  tolerate  other 
forms  of  government,  especially  when  those  forms 
seem  to  be  rivals. 

The  autocrat  who  controls  his  own  subjects 
absolutely  must  desire  to  extend  his  control  over 
his  neighbours;  and  nothing  could  be  more  dis- 
quieting to  an  autocrat  than  to  have  powerful 
democratic  neighbours.  They  may  not  be  even 
materially  powerful;  it  is  sufficient  for  them  to 
waft  abroad  the  principles  of  democracy,  as  flowers 


I46  VOLLEYS  FROM  A  NON-COMBATANT 

waft  their  fructifying  pollen.  If  only  a  river 
divides  the  two  nations,  how  can  the  sight  of  the 
democrats,  who  are  masters  of  themselves,  fail 
to  put  revolutionary  thoughts  into  the  minds  of 
the  autocrat's  human  chattels?  Since  1871  Ger- 
many, following  Bismarck's  cue,  pretended  to 
feel  contempt  for  the  noisy,  explosive,  often 
discordant  French  democrats;  but  it  was  the 
example  that,  in  spite  of  all  shortcomings,  France 
could  maintain  herself  as  a  democracy  which  dis- 
quieted the  despot  at  Berlin  and  made  him  desire 
the  downfall  of  democratic  France. 

And  not  of  France  only  but  of  all  democracies. 
During  the  past  fifty  years  the  spirit  of  democracy 
has  gone  into  all  lands  and  has  been  a  political 
solvent  in  which  many  ancient  despotisms  have 
been  loosened  and  transformed.  Bismarck  saw 
clearly  that  even  Prussian  autocracy  would  be 
consumed  by  it,  though,  as  he  said,  the  Germans 
are  politically  the  most  retrograde  of  European 
peoples  and  the  most  incapable  of  self-govern- 
ment. So  he  set  about  strengthening  autocracy 
in  Germany,  his  chief  weapon  being  the  extension 
of  militarism.  On  the  foundations  he  laid  the 
present  Kaiser  built;  and,  so  far  as  he  could,  he 
encoiled  with  his  partnership  the  other  chief 
despotisms,  the  sadly  degenerate  despotisms,  of 


BEWARE  OF  A  JUDAS  PEACE         147 

Europe — Austria  and  Turkey.  Bismarck  taught 
that  democracy,  through  lack  of  having  its  power 
unified  under  a  single  central  control,  could  not 
compete  with  an  autocracy.  When,  therefore, 
the  German  Kaiser  deemed  that  everything  was 
ready  at  home  and  that  the  internal  conditions, 
including  lack  of  military  preparedness  in  France, 
England,  Italy,  and  Russia,  were  most  favourable 
for  him,  he  sprang  with  tigerish  swiftness  and 
ferocity  at  the  throat  of  Belgium  and  France. 

The  slowly  unfolding  process  of  war  has  simply 
confirmed  the  fact  that  it  is  a  life-and-death 
struggle  between  these  two  antagonistic  principles. 
Autocracy,  championed  by  the  German  Kaiser, 
has  in  its  desperation  abandoned  civilized  methods 
and  ideals  and  has,  indeed,  been  ready  to  destroy 
civilization  itself  rather  than  to  let  go  its  hold  on 
power.  It  has  accepted  as  its  watchword  Bern- 
hardi's  alternative,  "  World  dominion  or  down- 
fall"; it  will  tolerate  no  other  form  of  government 
than  its  own;  it  recognizes  no  law,  human  or  divine, 
except  that  which  the  Kaiser  makes. 

What  peace,  what  truce  even,  can  be  arranged 
with  such  an  antagonist  ?  Where  are  any  common 
terms  for  negotiation  to  be  found?  The  timid, 
the  tired,  the  doubting,  the  depressed,  tell  us  that 
as  things  have  reached  a  deadlock  we  must  consent 


148  VOLLEYS  FROM  A  NON-COMBATANT 

to  compromise.  In  what  religious  creed  is  it 
taught  that  men  are  justified  in  compromising 
with  evil  ?  Into  what  brave  heart  did  the  poison- 
ous thought  ever  glide  that  he  might  honourably 
lay  down  his  arms  before  a  stubborn  and  formidable 
enemy?  In  this  conflict  there  can  be  no  stopping 
until  Prussian  military  autocracy,  the  most  recent 
form  in  which  Satan  has  panoplied  himself,  has 
been  destroyed.  Any  peace  which  leaves  that  in- 
tact will  usher  in  Prussian  world  dominion. 

It  takes  no  very  keen  eyes  to  penetrate  the 
deceit  of  the  camouflage  of  the  Kaiser's  peace  offer. 
If  he  were  now  all-victorious,  as  he  alleges,  would 
he  make  this  offer — or  any  other?  By  no  means. 
He  would  take,  occupy,  and  despotize  without 
any  "by  your  leave."  He  pretends  to  be  able 
to  dictate  to  all  the  belligerents.  What  is  the 
truth?  His  armies  are  farther  off  from  Paris 
than  they  were  a  year  ago;  he  has  gained  not  a 
square  inch  of  British  territory  for  a  foothold; 
and  his  futile  air  raids  on  England,  having  killed 
not  above  a  thousand  non-combatants,  mostly 
women  and  children,  have  simply  strengthened 
the  resolve  of  the  British  to  fight  until  the  coward 
monster  who  resorts  to  such  atrocities  is  slain.  He 
has  lost  all  his  colonies. 

The   Kaiser   knows   all   this.     He  has   known 


BEWARE  OF  A  JUDAS  PEACE         149 

since  the  Battle  of  the  Marne  that  he  was  beaten 
in  his  original  purpose.  Why,  then,  does  he  exploit 
so  flimsy  and  transparent  a  trick?  He  has  several 
motives.  In  the  first  place,  despairing  of  winning 
the  war  by  a  military  decision,  he  seeks  to  win  it  by 
political  corruption;  and  his  success  with  the 
infamous  Russian  dregs  encourages  him  to  hope 
that  he  may  disintegrate  his  other  enemies  by 
similar  means.  The  American  counterparts  of 
the  Bolsheviki  are  working  persistently  in  America, 
as  they  are  the  local  counterparts  in  other  countries, 
though  they  do  not  necessarily  speak  Russian. 

So  the  Kaiser  counts  on  them  everywhere. 
What  a  stupendous  hypocrisy  it  is,  when  you 
consider  it,  that  the  Kaiser,  the  complete  autocrat, 
who  has  throughout  his  reign  persecuted  and 
wished  to  annihilate  anarchists  and  socialists, 
should  now  turn  to  the  venal  members  of  both 
these  sects  to  save  him  from  destruction!  How 
can  he  ever  recover  his  prestige?  The  very  ex- 
istence of  the  German  Empire — of  the  autocracy 
which  plots  to  dominate  the  world — depends,  it 
appears,  on  the  good  will  of  these  incendiaries. 
And  how  shall  the  party  of  revolution,  which  has 
protested  for  half  a  century  that  it  could  make 
no  truce  with  German  autocracy,  regain  its  lost 
reputation  after  prostituting  itself  to  organize 


ISO  VOLLEYS  FROM  A  NON-COMBATANT 

the  Socialist  Congress  at  Stockholm  and  to  ad- 
minister deadly  poison  to  the  Russians,  at  the 
Kaiser's  suggestion? 

Another  motive  behind  the  peace  offer  is  the 
desperate  need  of  continuing  to  feed  the  German 
people  with  lies.  From  the  outset  this  has  been 
the  Kaiser's  favourite  expedient.  He  knew  their 
docility  and  it  seemed  as  if  he  wished  to  put  their 
gullibility  to  the  test.  They  were  told  long  ago 
that  he  had  taken  Paris,  occupied  London,  sub- 
jugated England,  and  burnt  Edinburgh.  They 
were  told  that  in  the  Battle  of  Jutland  the  German 
fleet  had  won  the  greatest  naval  victory  of  all 
time.  They  were  told  that  we  Americans  were  a 
wretched  lot  of  cowards,  who  couldn't  raise  an 
army  if  we  wished,  and  couldn't  send  one  to  Europe 
even  if  we  raised  it,  on  account  of  the  submarines 
which  controlled  the  Atlantic  and  were  starving 
England  into  submission. 

A  people  which  not  only  swallowed  all  these  lies 
but  smacked  their  lips  in  the  process,  naturally 
found  it  quite  logical  that  their  war  lord,  from  his 
victorious  height,  should  condescend  to  agree  to 
allow  his  poor  beaten  enemies  to  stop  fighting. 
To  the  German  people,  accordingly,  the  peace 
offer  is  another  proof  that  they  have  won  the  war. 

The  Kaiser  has  sneered  at  the  participation  of 


BEWARE  OF  A  JUDAS  PEACE          151 

the  Americans  in  the  war,  just  as  he  sneered  at  the 
British  "Contemptibles,"  but  he  understands 
very  well  that  the  American  troops  are  crossing 
regularly  to  France,  and  he  wishes  to  get  peace 
before  their  numbers,  added  to  the  armies  of  the 
Allies,  shall  vanquish  Hindenburg  on  the  western 
front.  This  is  another  reason. 

But  the  paramount  reason  for  his  frantic  desire 
for  peace  is  that  if  the  war  can  be  closed  now  he 
will  realize  his  Middle-Europe  dream,  which  will 
assure  for  him  in  a  very  few  years  the  domination 
of  the  world.  This  is  why  his  terms  must  not  be 
considered  for  a  moment.  He  slyly  counts  on  any 
consideration  of  peace  as  a  point  in  his  favour.  The 
temptation,  which  at  first  sight  reveals  itself  in  all  its 
repulsiveness,  may  exert  its  seductive  power  over  us 
if  we  give  it  time — "We  first  endure,  then  pity,  then 
embrace."  This  may  be  the  effect  that  a  bastard 
and  deceitful  peace-offer  may  work  upon  the  Allies. 

We  may  pertinently  inquire:  What  would  be 
the  preliminaries  of  such  a  peace?  Whom  could 
the  Allies  treat  with?  Not  with  the  Kaiser,  be- 
cause he  is  forsworn;  his  oath  is  worth  nothing, 
whether  he  pledge  himself  as  monarch  or  as  man. 
Tirpitz,  Hindenburg,  and  the  imperial  ring  could 
not  be  trusted.  They  boast  that  they  hold  no 
word  as  sacred,  and  they  are  busy  fabricating  lies, 


1 52  VOLLEYS  FROM  A  NON-COMBATANT 

plots,  and  conspiracies  which  they  sow  broadcast. 
Until  German  troops  shall  evacuate  the  territories 
they  have  seized,  and  shall  disarm,  it  would  be 
suicide,  therefore,  for  the  Allies  to  check  their 
military  operations,  to  withdraw  their  troops 
from  any  position,  and  much  less  to  think  of 
reducing  their  forces  by  a  single  man. 

Here  is  a  practical  difficulty  which  the  Kaiser 
cannot  have  overlooked,  but  there  is  a  moral 
consideration  which  cries  out  far  more  solemnly 
against  the  Kaiser's  schemes.  Every  ally,  every 
neutral,  every  man  or  woman  with  a  sense  of 
justice,  must  regard  such  a  compact  as  a  com- 
pounding with  the  most  atrocious  criminal  in 
history.  It  would  make  us  at  least  the  extenuators 
of  all  the  German  crimes,  of  the  outrages  on  women 
and  children  in  Belgium  and  France,  of  the  mas- 
sacres in  Poland  and  Armenia,  of  the  systematic 
starving  of  prisoners,  of  the  deportation  and  enslav- 
ing of  millions  of  non-combatants,  of  the  deliberate 
ravaging  of  towns  and  countries  and  the  destruc- 
tion of  works  of  art,  of  the  negation  of  the  primal 
trust  of  man  in  man  and  of  the  spirit  of  mercy  and 
justice  without  which  civilization  cannot  endure. 
Who  among  all  the  Allies  will  take  the  odious, 
bloodstained  hand  of  William  of  Hohenzollern  in 
his  and  say  "Let  us  be  friends'''? 


VI 

DESPOTISM  BY  THE  DREGS1 

THE  dissolution  of  Russia,  through  the  shame- 
ful action  of  the  Bolsheviki,  must  have  a 
salutary  effect,  which  neither  they  nor  the  Ger- 
mans who  corrupted  them  foresaw.  It  serves 
both  as  a  warning  and  as  an  example.  Years  be- 
fore the  Atrocious  War  began,  sober  observers 
believed  that  Western  civilization  was  headed 
straight  for  a  social  revolution — a  revolution 
which  should  be  more  thorough,  more  ruthless, 
more  inexorable  even  than  that  of  France  in 

1789. 

At  the  opening  of  the  French  Revolution  the 
great  mass  of  the  Third  Estate,  the  peasants  and 
labourers,  and  even  the  bourgeoisie,  being  without 
political  rights,  were  still  subservient  to  the  priv- 
ileged classes,  which  numbered  altogether  only  a 
few  thousand  individuals — who  ruled  them.  Now, 
however,  thanks  to  the  spread  of  democracy  as  a 
political  system  during  the  past  one  hundred  and 
twenty  years,  the  very  lowest  classes,  socially  and 

Saturday  Evening  Post,  May  4,  1918. 

153 


154  VOLLEYS  FROM  A  NON-COMBATANT 

economically,  enjoy  in  most  countries  the  franchise; 
and  even  in  despotic  countries  they  have  contrived 
to  band  together  in  labour  unions  and  other 
organizations. 

The  French  Revolution  of  1789  differed  totally 
from  the  Russian  Revolution  of  1917  in  that  it  was 
launched  by  some  of  the  best  leaders  in  France, 
and  that  when  it  passed  from  their  hands  into  the 
control  of  the  Terrorists  it  was  still  led  by  men  of 
unusual,  if  mistaken,  intellectual  force.  Mirabeau, 
whose  valiant  words  gave  the  keynote  of  the  Revo- 
lution, was  himself  a  noble  and,  what  is  far  more 
important,  was  one  of  the  very  few  transcendent 
statesmen  of  modern  Europe;  and  Robespierre, 
the  despot  of  the  Terror,  was  an  educated  man, 
fanatical,  narrow,  hard  as  steel  and  unbending  as 
flint. 

In  Russia,  however,  though  the  Revolution 
seems  to  have  been  begun  by  reasonable  men  like 
Miliukoff,  it  slipped  quickly  down  to  Kerensky, 
the  political  tight-rope  walker,  and  from  him  to 
the  Bolsheviki,  with  their  incredible  despots, 
Lenine  and  Trotzky.  Neither  by  training  nor 
experience,  nor  by  mental  endowment,  were  these 
two  sufficiently  equipped  to  run  even  a  dairy;  and 
yet  the  world  beheld  them,  for  four  months  and 
over,  directing  the  destiny  of  more  than  a  hundred 


DESPOTISM  BY  THE  DREGS  155 

and  fifty  million  Russians,  and  incidentally  affect- 
ing all  the  nations  involved  in  the  great  war. 

It  is  because  the  Bolsheviki  represent  the  lowest 
layer  of  Russian  society — the  very  dregs,  to  be 
precise — that  their  experiment  in  despotism  has 
far-reaching  significance.  I  call  them  the  dregs, 
not  from  any  snobbish  rating,  but  because  that  is 
a  word  which  describes  them.  It  is  a  pathetic 
and  terrible  fact  that  after  civilization,  as  we  know 
it,  has  been  in  progress  for  so  many,  many  cen- 
turies, there  should  exist  in  Russia,  or  any  other 
country  regarded  as  civilized,  a  large  body  of  the 
population  lying  stagnant  at  the  Bolshevist  level; 
and,  more  awful  still,  that  by  a  sudden  whirl  of 
fortune  they  should  be  able  to  seize  the  reins  of 
government  and  play  the  many-headed  despot 
over  the  multitudinous  millions  of  their  country- 
men. 

The  Russian  dregs  have  superstition,  but  no 
religion.  They  have  been  taught  for  centuries 
to  bow  their  heads  low,  a  posture  in  which  they 
cannot  look  their  fellowmen  face  to  face  and  eye 
to  eye,  much  less  look  up  and  recognize  a  Power 
higher  than  that  of  man.  So  ignorant  are  they 
that  they  do  not  understand  the  simplest  in- 
tellectual laws  of  life.  They  do  not  understand 
that  a  lasting  government  cannot  be  founded  for 


iS6  VOLLEYS  FROM  A  NON-COMBATANT 

the  crude  purpose  of  transferring  into  Bolshevik 
pockets  all  the  dollars  outside  of  them. 

"Behold,  my  son,  with  how  little  wisdom  the 
world  is  governed!"  Oxenstiern,  the  Swedish 
statesman,  remarked  three  centuries  ago;  and,  to 
the  eye  of  pure  reason,  human  governments  have 
nearly  always  been  run  with  a  minimum  of  wisdom. 
Still,  the  Bolsheviki  are  the  first  to  boast  that 
ignorance,  incompetence,  and  inexperience  are 
the  best  equipment  for  those  who  attempt  to 
govern  a  state. 

If  we  apply  the  Bolshevist  doctrine  in  other  fields 
we  shall  see  at  once  its  absurdity.  In  war,  for 
instance,  it  would  be  equivalent  to  asserting  that 
the  bows  and  arrows  and  tomahawks  of  Iroquois 
Indians  would  be  more  effective  weapons  than 
howitzers  and  machine  guns  and  seventy-fives  are 
to-day;  or,  in  transportation,  that  the  ox  cart, 
with  its  primitive  wheels  cut  from  the  trunk  of  a 
large  tree,  with  which  the  Russian  muzhik  trundles 
over  the  muddy  Muscovite  plains,  is  superior  to  the 
modern  locomotive  and  its  train  of  freight  cars. 

During  the  period  of  reconstruction  after  our 
Civil  War  shortsighted  politicians  practised  the 
Bolshevist  method  when  they  handed  over  the 
control  of  some  of  our  Southern  States  to  the 
negroes — persons,  that  is,  who  had  had  abso- 


DESPOTISM  BY  THE  DREGS  157 

lutely  no  training  in  government  and  who  had 
recently  been  actual  slaves.  We  may  attribute 
to  them  all  the  good  intentions  we  wish;  but  the 
result  was  what  it  had  to  be.  And  that  episode 
stands  out  now  as  one  of  the  most  disgraceful  in 
our  history.  Years  later  a  well-known  aboli- 
tionist, a  friend  of  mine,  was  talking  the  matter 
over  with  a  sensible  old  darky  who  said:  "Dose 
yere  politicians  up  no'th  tried  to  put  ign'rance  on 
top  of  'telligence;  but  it  wouldn't  stay  dar." 

It  would  be  well  if  every  Bolshevik  in  Russia, 
and  those  who  think  like  him  in  all  parts  of  the 
world,  would  adopt  and  ponder  the  old  darky's 
wise  words.  You  can  put  ignorance  on  top  of 
intelligence,  but  it  won't  stay  there.  The  mere 
fact  of  living  in  the  twentieth  century  presup- 
poses a  certain  modicum  of  intelligence  on  the 
part  of  even  the  lowest. 

Formerly,  before  modern  inventions  had  made 
the  whole  world  one  neighbourhood,  life  was  really 
very  simple.  The  village  supported  itself,  raising 
its  own  food  and  other  necessaries,  and  passing  its 
day  as  monotonously  as  a  bagpipe's  drone;  whereas 
now  that  village  must  be  very  remote  which  does 
not  count  among  its  villagers  persons  with  intel- 
ligence enough  to  have  relations  with  the  great 
business  of  the  country  and  to  tap  national  chan- 


1 58   VOLLEYS  FROM  A  NON-COMBATANT 

nels  of  distribution.  We  live  at  one  or  more 
removes  from  Nature,  and  we  must  know  the 
machinery  that  connects  us  with  life,  or  else  we 
perish.  And  yet  it  is  precisely  at  this  time,  when 
intelligence  is  the  condition  indispensable  to  our 
existence,  that  the  Bolsheviki  unfurl  their  banner 
of  ignorance  and  propose  to  overturn  society. 

If  they  ask  us  to  repudiate  the  old  Romanoff 
methods  of  unjust  government  we  concur;  but, 
because  we  repudiate  the  despotism  of  the  Czar, 
we  repudiate  also  the  despotism  of  the  dregs. 
Insist,  if  you  will,  that  under  the  Czar's  regime 
Russian  society  was  so  organized  and  governed 
that  the  lion's  share  of  wealth  went  into  the  hands 
of  the  Czar,  his  court,  their  friends,  and  a  limited 
privileged  class  of  nobles  and  capitalists.  Do  the 
Bolsheviki  offer  a  juster  system,  one  in  which 
equality  and  fraternity  really  prevail,  one  in  which 
there  is  even  a  distant  recognition  of  liberty? 
Far  from  it.  The  Bolsheviki  do  not  even  disguise 
their  piratical  motives;  Czarism  did.  By  its 
more  sophisticated  methods  it  hid  its  rapacity 
under  economic  and  social  subterfuges.  The  devil 
was  not  only  the  inventor  of  indirect  taxation, 
by  which  a  whole  people  can  be  fleeced  for  the 
benefit  of  a  fraction,  but  he  invented,  also,  most 
of  the  devices  by  which  despotism  oils  its  ma- 


DESPOTISM  BY  THE  DREGS  159 

chinery.  The  Russian  Bolshevik!  are  merciless 
to  their  enemies,  to  whom  they  acknowledge 
no  obligations,  no  rights,  and  whom  they  intend 
to  crush  by  force.  Every  person  possessing  a 
dollar  is  their  enemy. 

Extremes  meet.  The  German  Empire,  the 
most  highly  organized  despotism,  past  or  present, 
proclaims  that  no  non-German  has  any  rights 
which  it  respects;  not  even  the  right  to  live.  And 
it  denies  that  any  moral  law  or  regard  for  duty, 
or  for  humanity,  or  for  justice,  can  bind  a  German 
in  his  dealings  with  non-Germans.  This  is  exactly 
the  doctrine  preached  by  the  Bolsheviki. 

Having  wriggled  themselves  into  power,  the 
Bolsheviki  bluntly  announced  that  they  would 
rule  alone.  They  would  not  tolerate  representa- 
tives of  any  other  class  to  share  in  the  government, 
or  to  speak  in  either  the  name  of  their  class  or  of 
Russia;  and  this  they  called  democracy!  Even 
Prussian  despots  were  more  careful  than  they  to 
keep  up  the  pretense  of  giving  all  classes  a  share 
in  the  franchise,  and  so  presumably  in  the  govern- 
ment of  the  state.  Every  Prussian  voted;  but 
the  votes  were  so  weighted  that  in  some  cases  one 
Junker  equalled  sixty  thousand  plebeians. 

This  is  the  Prussian  way  of  practising  equality; 
and  yet  there  are  glib,  sanctimonious,  and  deceitful 


160  VOLLEYS  FROM  A  NON-COMBATANT 

German  professors  who  boast  of  Germany's  man- 
hood suffrage  and  of  the  deep  craving  for  democ- 
racy in  the  German  heart.  We  shall  not 
understand  the  situation  until  we  perceive  that  the 
Bolsheviki  and  the  German  despots  detest  democ- 
racy equally,  and  that  their  detestation  creates 
another  strong  bond  between  them. 

The  principles  of  the  Bolsheviki,  or  Maximalists, 
are  summed  up  in  the  cry:  "We  want  more!'* 
which  differs  only  in  degree  from  that  of  the  Ger- 
man pirates:  "We  want  the  earth!"  The  Bol- 
shevik is  born  into  the  world  in  very  wretched 
circumstances.  After  passing  beyond  childhood 
he  has  no  one  but  himself  to  turn  to  for  support; 
then  he  can  earn  only  a  scanty  pittance,  he  has 
only  meagre  fare  and  unceasing  toil.  On  looking 
about  him  he  sees  other  men  much  more  fortunately 
placed  in  life;  a  few  enjoy  great  wealth,  which  they 
themselves  did  not  earn,  but  the  larger  part 
labour  in  one  way  or  another,  and  the  scale  has 
been  so  arranged  that  most  of  them  are  so  well 
paid  that  they  can  give  their  families  ease  and 
comfort — perhaps  even  luxury. 

This  inequality  in  their  lots  seems  to  the  Bol- 
shevik proof  not  only  of  inequality  but  of  rank 
injustice.  He  believes  himself  the  victim,  and  no 
doubt  he  sometimes  is,  of  exploitation  by  those 


DESPOTISM  BY  THE  DREGS          161 

above  him.  He  thinks  that  the  social  and  indus- 
trial system  in  which  he  is  hopelessly  imprisoned 
regards  him  as  unhumanly  as  it  would  a  wheel- 
barrow or  a  hoe — a  tool  necessary  for  accumulating 
wealth  for  the  beneficiaries  of  the  system — not  a 
man  with  a  man's  hopes,  needs,  sorrows,  and  suffer- 
ings, to  be  dealt  with  sympathetically. 

If  he  inquires  of  his  aged  parents  how  it  was 
with  them  they  tell  him  that  it  was  no  better; 
or  with  their  parents,  or  with  those  who  went 
before,  as  far  as  tradition  whispers.  And  so  ho 
concludes  that  a  hideous  and  merciless  injustice 
persists  from  age  to  age  in  the  world  and,  like  a 
python,  strangles  him  as  his  fellows  in  its  frightful 
coils. 

The  heart  that  nurses  a  grievance,  the  head 
that  turns  over  and  over  in  sullen  anger  a  wrong 
which  it  cannot  redress,  can  never  be  safe  counsel- 
lors. Whosoever  speaks  in  wrath,  speaks  folly* 
But  the  Bolsheviki  and  all  like  them  listen  to  their 
wrath  and  act  as  it  dictates.  Since  they  cannot 
get  the  wealth  they  covet  in  any  other  way,  they 
will  take  it  by  force;  and  snaky  sophists  urge  them 
on,  telling  them  that  the  wealth  is  really  theirs, 
because  they  and  their  kindred  earned  it. 

To  want  more — if  "more"  means  education, 
wisdom,  virtue,  power  to  do  good,  humanity — 


i62   VOLLEYS  FROM  A  NON-COMBATANT 

indicates  an  appetite  at  once  healthy  and  laudable; 
but  when  "more"  means  money,  luxury,  and 
other  material  and  sensual  things  it  is  a  very  doubt- 
ful object  of  pursuit.  And  when  you  begin  seizing 
from  another,  on  the  mere  warrant  of  your  own 
greed,  that  which  belongs  to  him,  you  embark  on 
downright  robbery.  Nor  will  your  plea  that  he 
first  stole  it,  by  so-called  lawful  means  from 
those  who  could  not  resist  him,  absolve  you. 

Having  entered  on  this  process  of  appropria- 
tion, where  will  the  Bolsheviki  stop  ?  If  they  take 
all  the  dollars  of  all  the  non-Bolsheviki,  how  will 
these  be  able  to  survive  ?  The  Germans,  of  course, 
are  not  troubled  by  such  questions;  they  see  to  it 
that  the  occupants  of  lands  which  they  covet — 
Belgium,  Poland,  Serbia,  Armenia — are  either 
slaughtered  outright  or  left  to  die  from  lack  of 
food.  The  Bolsheviki,  however,  have  not  yet 
reached  the  pass  where  they  are  ready  to  destroy, 
even  if  they  could,  the  millions  of  Russians  whose 
wealth  they  covet. 

Nevertheless,  so  far  as  appears  in  their  avowed 
principles  and  in  their  acts,  the  great  incentive 
that  impels  them  is  to  transfer  into  their  own 
purses  the  roubles  which  belong  to  others. 

I  believe  that  every  government  like  every 
individual,  not  only  should  cherish  and  proclaim 


DESPOTISM  BY  THE  DREGS  163 

ideals  but  should  strive  to  the  utmost  to  attain 
them.  The  higher  the  ideals  in  either  case,  the 
less  likely  it  is  that  they  will  be  wholly  attained. 

A  man's  reach  should  exceed  his  grasp, 
Or  what's  a  heaven  for? 

But  ideals,  as  we  use  the  word,  imply  a  reach  up- 
ward; an  endeavour  after  something  better;  the 
yearning  for  the  intangible,  the  invisible,  the  holy, 
the  ultimate  good.  Test  the  Bolshevist  aims  by 
this  touchstone — you  find  nothing  ideal  about 
them.  They  cry  out  against  the  greed  and  in- 
justice of  the  privileged  classes  and  the  capitalists; 
and  all  they  plan  to  do — all,  according  to  their 
vision,  they  can  do — is  to  substitute  their  own 
injustice,  their  own  greed  for  those  of  their  enemies. 
They  will  never  capture  my  sympathy  or  that  of 
anybody  else  who  sees  that  this  is  a  moral  world, 
in  which  the  immoral  can  be  put  down  only  by 
superior  moral  force.  To  dethrone  one  greed 
and  set  up  another  equally  hideous  can  bring  no 
improvement;  and  in  this  case  it  may  be  that  the 
system  of  industrial  and  social  greed  against  which 
the  Bolsheviki  rage  is  less  evil  than  their  own  in- 
cendiary purpose. 

They  have  not  learned  a  truth  that  was  revealed 
to  men  ages  and  ages  ago — long  before  industrial- 


164  VOLLEYS  FROM  A  NON-COMBATANT 

ism  was  dreamed  of — that  "Order  is  heaven's  first 
law."  Bolsheviki  and  anarchists  who  propose 
to  set  up  disorder,  in  place  of  such  order  as  the 
world  has  been  able  to  maintain,  condemn  them- 
selves and  their  system.  They  advocate  a  condi- 
tion so  utterly  antagonistic  to  every  human  and 
natural  law  that  it  cannot  possibly  endure.  Any 
one,  of  course,  can  cause  disorder.  And  if  the 
disorder  be  on  a  sufficiently  large  scale  it  may  be 
called  a  revolution;  but  revolutions  do  not  last. 
After  the  anarchist  has  smashed  everything  he 
detests  he  must  set  up  in  its  place  a  regime  in  which 
every-day  life  can  go  on,  business  be  transacted, 
commerce  be  extended,  the  ordinary  human  con- 
tacts be  enjoyed,  the  individual  experience  of  men, 
women,  and  children  be  undergone. 

The  time  must  come,  even  in  the  Utopia  of 
which  the  anarchist  dreams,  when  there  will  be  no 
more  enemies  for  him  to  blow  up.  His  Utopia 
provides  for  no  regular  occupation;  but  if  we  try 
to  visualize  it  we  see  only  him  and  all  his  fellow 
anarchists  whirling  round  like  epileptic  mice  in  a 
frenzy  of  movement  that  leads  to  nothing.  Poli- 
tical revolutions  do,  indeed,  seem  to  be  in  per- 
manence, if  not  chronic,  in  some  of  the  South 
American  republics;  but  if  we  examine  closely  we 
shall  find  that  usually,  after  a  few  days  or  weeks 


DESPOTISM  BY  THE  DREGS          165 

of  violence  and  hysteria — during  which  a  tyrant 
that  would  be  attempts  to  oust  the  tyrant  that  is — 
the  country  returns  to  a  state  of  tranquillity,  at 
least  so  far  as  to  permit  the  ordinary  routine  of 
life  to  be  resumed. 

Visit  any  of  those  republics  after  it  has  come 
through  the  longest,  frightfullest,  and  most  san- 
guinary revolution,  and  you  will  perceive  that  all 
of  its  population  which  has  survived  somehow  or 
other  succeeded,  even  during  the  worst  days,  in 
getting  food;  from  which  you  infer  that  the  hum- 
drum employments  of  life,  against  which  the 
anarchist  rages,  still  went  on,  though  in  diminished 
volume.  Revolution  can  no  more  be  an  enduring 
condition  in  a  state  than  can  brain  fever  in  a 
person.  The  anarchist  may  rejoin  that  he  does 
not  aim  at  forming  a  state  or  a  nation;  that,  on  the 
contrary,  he  desires  each  individual  to  be  isolated, 
to  be  his  own  master,  to  follow  his  own  whims  and 
passions,  unhampered  by  the  laws  or  whims  of 
anybody  else. 

On  every  ground,  sane  men  the  world  over 
must  deplore  that  Russia  on  the  very  threshold 
of  her  freedom  should  have  fallen  a  prey  to  the 
despicable  yet  terrible — (all  maniacs  are  terrible) 
— Bolsheviki.  And  it  is  all  the  more  to  be  regretted 
that  Lenine,  Trotzky,  and  the  other  leaders  of  the 


166  VOLLEYS  FROM  A  NON-COMBATANT 

Bolshevist  orgy  of  crime  and  cruelty  are  Jews. 
The  nineteenth  was  the  century  of  the  germs  and 
the  Germans,  and  the  twentieth  seems  destined 
to  be  the  century  of  the  Jews,  who,  after  being 
for  ages  unjustly  cast  out  and  persecuted  as  the 
pariahs  of  civilization,  have  become  the  parasites 
who  fatten  on  its  industries,  commerce,  and 
finance.  Their  entry,  under  the  guise  of  Bol- 
sheviki,  into  the  sphere  of  government  is  ominous. 
If  this  is  a  sample  of  what  the  world  is  to  be  under 
them,  better,  a  thousand  times  better,  that  the 
Deluge  should  come  before  rather  than  after  them. 

Have  you  ever  seen  a  community  of  prairie  dogs, 
in  which  each  sits  up  erect  at  the  opening  of 
his  particular  burrow?  Substitute  anarchists  for 
prairie  dogs,  each  with  a  gun,  watching  to  snipe  any 
of  his  neighbours  who  unwarily  pops  his  head  out 
of  his  hole,  and  you  have  a  foresight  of  the  Utopia 
that  anarchism  hopes  to  erect  on  the  ruins  of  the 
present  world.  But  prairie  dogs  live  on  a  com- 
paratively low  level  of  morals  and  intelligence  in 
the  animal  kingdom,  and  no  reasonable  man  would 
take  them  as  a  pattern  for  building  a  human  state. 
That  the  best  the  anarchists  can  hold  up  to  us,  as 
their  vision  of  what  should  be,  is  the  prairie-dog 
community  shows  where  they  belong. 

But  the  Bolsheviki  and  their  similars  in  many 


DESPOTISM  BY  THE  DREGS  167 

countries  deny  that  they  are  anarchists;  and  they 
insist  that  they  uphold  the  quite  opposite  ideals  of 
socialism.  "Socialist"  has  become  a  term  of  such 
varied,  elastic,  vague,  and  evasive  meaning  that 
many  persons  accept  it  as  they  might  wear  a  mag- 
nificent cloak  to  render  themselves  invisible  at 
need.  In  fact,  it  is  almost  as  useful  as  Charity 
for  covering  a  multitude  of  sins. 

I  am  not  concerned  with  labels,  but  with  actions; 
and  the  actions  of  the  Bolsheviki,  so  far  as  they 
have  been  described  during  the  Russian  Revolu- 
tion, warrant  us  in  classing  them  with  the  most 
destructive  revolutionists,  who  propose  and  have 
to  some  extent  used  the  methods  of  the  anarchists, 
whatever  may  be  the  state  they  wish  to  establish 
after  they  have  destroyed  society  as  it  is. 

There  is  an  old  story — perhaps  untrue — of  one 
of  the  early  Rothschilds,  who  was  held  up  one  day 
by  a  ruffian-like  fellow  who  said  angrily:  "I  be- 
lieve in  the  division  of  wealth.  Nobody  has  a 
right  to  be  as  rich  as  you  are."  Not  at  all  discon- 
certed, Rothschild  was  silent  for  a  moment,  as  if 
computing,  then  he  replied:  "Very  well.  I  am 
worth  so  much.  There  are  so  many  million 
inhabitants  in  this  country.  Your  share,  pro  rata, 
Is  two  and  a  half  thalers.  Here  they  are."  And 
he  handed  out  the  money  and  walked  on. 


168  VOLLEYS  FROM  A  NON-COMBATANT 

That  seemed  a  simple  way  to  settle  the  feverish 
conflict  between  capital  and  labour;  but,  even  if 
the  division  could  be  made  peaceably,  nobody 
believes  that  it  would  result  in  a  lasting  settlement. 
I  do  not  intend  to  thrust  forward  the  argument, 
as  cheap  as  it  is  trite,  against  socialism  or  an- 
archism or  any  other  scheme  of  revolution,  that, 
even  if  it  were  carried  out,  the  world  would  revert 
in  a  week's  time  to  its  immemorial  state  of  in- 
equality; those  who  have  the  knack  of  getting  rich 
would  have  begun  to  acquire  the  share  of  those  who 
not  only  cannot  make  money  but  cannot  even  keep 
it  when  they  have  it.  A  survey  of  history,  ancient 
or  modern,  justifies  us  in  assuming  that  this  rever- 
sion to  inequality  would  take  place.  But,  with 
the  damnation  of  Germany  before  us,  let  us  beware 
of  asserting  that  human  nature  will  never  do  this 
thing  or  that  thing. 

Up  to  fifty  years  ago  the  Germans  were  regarded 
as  a  decent,  well-intentioned,  rather  kindly  if 
mannerless  people;  leaders  in  philosophy  and  in 
music;  leaders  in  science;  devoted  to  education; 
literally  saturated  with  the  poetry  and  prose  of 
Goethe,  Schiller,  and  their  contemporaries;  fed  on 
Luther's  Bible ;  and  prone  to  relieve  their  patient, 
plodding  pursuit  of  science  by  romanticist  out- 
bursts and  by  unabashed  sentimentality. 


DESPOTISM  BY  THE  DREGS          169 

Then  the  Prussian  virus,  which  had  been  dis- 
tilling from  Prussian  bandits,  Junkers,  and  bar- 
barians for  many  generations,  was  inoculated  into 
the  German  body;  and  it  spread  slowly  through 
every  artery  and  vein,  through  every  limb  and 
muscle,  including  the  heart,  and  mounted  into  the 
brain — and  poisoned  all.  And  the  German  people, 
the  good-natured  burly  people  of  scarcely  half  a 
century  ago,  has  been  perverted  into  a  nation  of 
wolves  and  serpents. 

They  repudiate  every  moral  law,  every  instinct 
of  humanity  that  raises  man  above  the  beasts; 
they  preach  and  practise  the  slaughter  of  the 
innocent  and  the  defenseless;  they  shrink  from 
neither  arson  nor  outrage  nor  torture ;  they  pollute 
wells  and  spread  baneful  bacteria;  they  bombard 
hospitals  and  hospital  ships,  killing  without  mercy 
the  wounded,  the  nurses,  and  the  surgeons ;  and  in 
their  insensate  fury  they  destroy  even  trees,  mute 
witnesses  of  their  diabolism. 

With  this  object  lesson  before  us  of  the  power 
of  evil  to  transform  a  people  in  less  than  fifty  years, 
let  no  one  say  hereafter  that  human  nature  is 
always  the  same;  and  that,  therefore,  reforms 
which  aim  at  making  over  its  essence  cannot 
possibly  succeed.  Let  us  rather  ask  why,  if  the 
forces  of  evil  can  work  this  change,  the  forces  of 


170  VOLLEYS  FROM  A  NON-COMBATANT 

good  might  not  conceivably  work  another  equally 
fundamental  ? 

It  is  on  our  belief  that  human  nature  is  per- 
fectible— that  we  can,  as  individuals  and  as  groups, 
improve  ourselves  in  manners,  mind,  and  morals — 
that  we  base  our  systems  of  education  from  age 
to  age.  They  change  and  the  pupils  whom  they 
discipline  change — an  indication  that  human 
nature,  which  underlies  both,  changes  also.  Nay, 
the  Germans,  who  are  now  so  thoroughly  infected 
with  the  Hunnish  poison,  might  plead  that  that 
is  not  what  it  used  to  be:  for  during  the  Thirty 
Years'  War  the  Germans  resorted  to  cannibalism 
and  ate  each  other — a  degradation  they  have  ab- 
stained from  in  the  present  war. 

I  admit,  therefore,  that,  as  human  nature  may 
change,  the  argument  against  Socialism,  which 
depends  on  the  unchangeability  of  human  nature, 
is  not  valid.  But  let  us  turn  from  vague  and  very 
remote  possibilities  to  unescapable  facts.  Let  us 
ask  what  the  Bolsheviki  professed  and  what  they 
actually  did.  It  ought  certainly  to  be  fair  to  take 
Trotzky,  whom  they  have  followed  and  obeyed 
for  many  months,  as  their  representative  and  to 
regard  him  as  their  authoritative  spokesman. 

In  1916  he  was  living  in  France,  editing  an 
incendiary  Russian  newspaper  called  the  Nashe 


DESPOTISM  BY  THE  DREGS  171 

Slave,  and  sowing  the  seeds  of  the  Revolution  to  the 
best  of  his  ability  among  the  French  proletariat. 
He  belonged  to  the  Workmen's  International,  a 
body  that  has  been  industriously  burrowing  under 
the  surface  of  society  in  most  of  the  European 
countries  and  in  the  United  States.  Being  sus- 
pected of  instigating  a  mutiny  among  Russian 
sailors,  Trotzky  was  expelled  from  France. 

It  happened  that  Jules  Guesde,  a  socialist  of 
formidable  reputation,  was  a  member  of  the 
Briand  Ministry  which  expelled  him.  Trotzky 
thereupon  addressed  to  Guesde  an  open  letter 
filled  with  vituperation  and  scorn  of  the  backsliding 
socialist  minister,  and  with  fiery  protestations 
of  Trotzky's  incorruptibility  and  dauntlessness. 
Listen  to  a  few  sentences  from  this  address  of  the 
Muscovite  Catiline: 


We  revolutionary  internationalists  are  more  dangerous 
enemies  of  German  reaction  than  all  the  governments  of  the 
Allies  taken  together.  Their  hostility  to  Germany  is,  at 
the  bottom,  nothing  but  the  hatred  of  the  competitor;  our 
revolutionary  hatred  of  its  ruling  class  is  indestructible. 
Imperialist  competition  may  again  unite  the  rival  enemy 
brethren  of  to-day.  When  the  total  destruction  of  Ger- 
many has  been  realized,  England  and  France,  after  a  decade, 
would  again  approach  the  Kaiserdom  of  the  Hohenzollern 
in  the  friendliest  spirit,  to  defend  themselves  against  the 
superiority  of  Russia.  A  future  Poincare  will  exchange  tele- 
grams of  congratulation  with  Wilhelm  or  with  his  heirs; 


172  VOLLEYS  FROM  A  NON-COMBATANT 

Lloyd  George,  in  the  peculiar  language  of  the  priest  and  the 
boxer,  will  curse  and  condemn  Russia  as  the  defending  wall  of 
barbarism  and  militarism;  Albert  Thomas,  as  the  French  am- 
bassador to  the  Kaiser,  would  be  showered  with  flowers  cut 
by  the  gentle  hands  of  the  court  madames  of  Potsdam,  as 
occurred  so  recently  in  Tsarskoe  Selo. 

All  the  banalities  of  present-day  speeches  and  articles 
would  again  be  unpacked.  Mr.  Renaudel  would  have  to 
change  in  his  article  only  the  proper  names,  a  task  for  which 
his  mental  faculties  and  abilities  would  doubtless  suffice. 
But  we  will  remain  the  outspoken  sworn  enemies  of  Ger- 
many's rulers  that  we  are  to-day;  for  we  hate  German  reac- 
tion with  the  same  revolutionary  hatred  that  we  have  sworn 
against  Czarism  and  against  the  French  moneyed  aristocracy.* 

Brave  words  of  the  Muscovite  Catiline  of  1916! 
But  I  do  Catiline  an  injustice  by  this  comparison; 
for  the  Roman  fought  and  died ;  but  the  Bolshevik 
ranted  and  vapoured  and  ignominiously  sur- 
rendered. There  is  a  long  distance  still  between 
such  Russians  and  the  Romans,  not  only  in 
their  civilization  but  in  their  capacity  for  backing 
up  a  revolution,  or  in  any  other  task  requiring 
character. 

Less  than  a  year  after  Trotzky  had  hurled  his 
defiant  sarcasm  at  Guesde  he  turned  up  in  Berlin 
on  his  way  from  New  York  to  Russia,  and  there 
some  influence  seems  to  have  overcome  his  valour. 

*This  letter  was  first  printed  in  Geneva  and  recently  appeared  in  the 
Class  Struggle,  the  Internationalist  organ  in  New  York  City.  The  New  York 
Tribune  reprinted  it  on  March  16,  1918. 


DESPOTISM  BY  THE  DREGS          173 

More  than  that,  it  seems  to  have  hopelessly 
crippled  his  sense  of  logic;  for  on  reaching  Russia 
and  succeeding,  with  Lenine,  in  grasping  control 
of  the  Revolution,  which  had  sunk  by  this  time 
to  the  level  of  the  Bolsheviki,  he  set  about  arrang- 
ing to  surrender  Russia  to  William  II  and  the 
Austrian  Emperor,  whom  he  had  recently  branded 
as  "  two  criminals  who  .  .  .  refused  to  respect 
the  rules  and  regulations  of  international  law."  He 
and  Lenine  disbanded  the  shattered  fragments  of 
the  Russian  army,  bade  the  Russians  fraternize 
with  the  Teutons,  and  in  less  than  four  months 
had  made  over  great  provinces  of  Russia,  with 
fifty-five  million  inhabitants,  to  the  German 
Kaiser  and  his  Austrian  vassal. 

To  those  of  us  who  still  cling  to  the  meaning  of 
words  and  who  understand  the  values  of  the  things 
behind  the  words,  this  is  the  most  amazing  treach- 
ery in  history;  but  Trotzky  would  no  more  blush 
at  being  accused  of  it  than  he  blushed  at  com- 
mitting it.  He  holds  patriotism  in  disdain;  he 
calls  it  "this  mania  of  nationalism."  In  his  view 
the  proletarians  have  no  nation,  no  country;  and, 
therefore,  they  feel  no  patriotic  passion.  What 
binds  them  together  is  their  class  interest,  which 
he  regards  as  identical  in  Russia,  Germany,  France, 
and  the  United  States. 


174  VOLLEYS  FROM  A  NON-COMBATANT 

But  we  cannot  help  asking  what  happened  to 
change  Trotzky's  vehement  hatred  of  the  German 
Kaiser.  Their  enemies  say  that  he  and  his  Bol- 
shevist accomplices  were  bought  up  by  the  Kaiser's 
gold ;  and  we  can  imagine  that  if  they  were,  in  fact, 
bribable,  the  Kaiser  could  have  lured  them  all  for 
a  smaller  sum  than  it  costs  him  to  run  the  war  a 
day. 

There  is,  however,  besides  bribery,  the  alterna- 
tive reason — duplicity — to  account  for  the  great 
betrayal.  Lenine  and  Trotzky  and  the  little 
group  of  vapourers  round  them  may  have  been 
honestly  hoodwinked,  gulled,  and  captured  by 
German  guile.  How  varied  this  is  we  all  know. 
Perhaps  the  Germans  flattered  the  vanity  of  these 
two  men,  who  had  risen  with  tragical  suddenness 
to  control  in  a  very  real  sense  the  destiny  of 
Russia,  and  to  deflect,  so  far  as  they  could,  the 
course  of  the  war. 

Doubtless  the  Boches  promised  much,  smoothed 
over  difficulties,  pretended  to  be  deeply  concerned 
for  the  welfare  of  the  downtrodden  Russian 
proletariat,  and  anxious  lest,  if  the  Bolsheviki  did 
not  accept  German  good  will,  some  turn  of  fortune 
might  restore  the  Czar,  and  with  him  all  the 
tyranny  the  lower  classes  had  suffered  from  the 
Romanoffs.  In  short,  you  can  imagine  what 


DESPOTISM  BY  THE  DREGS  175 

blandishments  you  will;  the  result  you  know: 
Led  by  Lenine  and  Trotzky,  the  Bolshevist  fly 
walked  with  a  lunatic  simper  into  the  parlour  of  the 
Hun  spider.  Russia  ceased  to  exist  as  a  coherent 
empire. 

What  should  we  say  of  these  men?  They  had 
protested  for  years  their  hatred  of  tyranny;  but 
when  the  Russian  yoke  was  lifted  for  the  first 
time  they  were  so  feeble-minded,  so  moth-witted, 
that  they  rushed  voluntarily  and  eagerly  to  put 
their  necks  into  a  yoke  more  terrible  than  they  had 
ever  borne.  Bad  and  loathsome  as  czarist  despo- 
tism was,  it  never  equalled  that  of  the  Prussians, 
for  under  the  czars  there  always  came  respites  in 
oppression — moments  when  the  corrupt  and  in- 
competent administration  relaxed  a  little,  perhaps 
from  sheer  indolence;  but  the  Poles  in  Posen  and 
the  French  in  Alsace  know  that  the  Prussian 
never  relaxes.  To  him  a  subject  people  is  an 
enemy  toward  whom  he  never  relents.  On  the 
contrary,  he  busies  his  careful,  painstaking  mind 
in  devising  new  forms  of  persecution.  To  Prus- 
sian tyranny .  Trotzky  and  Lenine  consigned  the 
Russian  people  with  a  smirk  of  self-satisfaction, 
as  if  they  were  placing  their  countrymen  beyond 
the  reach  of  peril. 

Trotzky  has  written  so  clear  a  statement  of  his 


176  VOLLEYS  FROM  A  NON-COMBATANT 

aims*  that  we  are  hardly  likely  to  misunderstand 
or  misjudge  him.  Before  the  war  he  believed  that 
the  Second  International — that  is,  the  Socialist 
League,  which  was  organized  in  Europe  and  Amer- 
ica— would  control  not  merely  international  eco- 
nomic but  also  international  political  conditions. 
If  the  capitalistic  governments  proposed  to  make 
war  on  each  other,  the  French  socialist,  being  a 
socialist  first  and  a  Frenchman  second,  would 
simply  refuse  to  fight  the  German,  who  was  as- 
sumed to  be  a  socialist  first  and  a  German  second ; 
and  so  of  Russian,  Austrian,  Italian,  and  all  other 
socialists.  Then  evidently  there  could  be  no  war. 
But  facts  inconsiderately  exploded  the  socialist 
expectations,  perhaps  because  the  German,  through 
his  utter  brutality,  taught  the  Frenchman  and  the 
others  that  he  was  at  heart  German  before  every- 
thing else.  The  socialists  in  Germany  truckled 
obsequiously  to  the  imperial  command,  and  their 
leaders  informed  foreign  socialists  that  they  con- 
templated no  move  which  should  weaken  or  menace 
the  German  imperialist  policy.  I  except  the 
socialist  Liebknecht,  who  so  far  as  appears,  has 
been  the  one  moral  hero  in  Germany  since  August, 
1914;  and  he  has  been,  quite  naturally,  most  of 
the  time  in  prison. 

*The  Bolsheviki  and  World  Peace,  by  Leon  Trotzky,  New  York,  1918. 


DESPOTISM  BY  THE  DREGS  177 

Trotzky  has  had  to  deplore,  therefore,  that  the 
nations  were  fighting  the  battles  of  capitalism,  in 
which  the  proletariat  had  absolutely  no  interest, 
just  as  if  the  International  had  not  been  working 
and  agitating  for  more  than  a  decade.  And  so  he 
laments  that  the  Second  International  had  noth- 
ing to  do  but  to  die.  When  Russia  rid  herself  of 
the  Czar  by  the  Revolution  and  the  Bolsheviki 
came  into  control,  Trotzky,  the  lifelong  enemy 
of  Capitalism,  was  inspired  by  the  brilliant 
thought  that  he  would  betray  Russia  to  Ger- 
many, the  very  country  which,  he  insisted,  had 
made  greater  advances  in  capitalism  than  any 
other. 

Writing  only  a  few  months  ago,  Trotzky  ex- 
pressed alarm  lest  the  war  should  continue  for 
several  years,  until  all  the  belligerents  were 
reduced  to  exhaustion.  If  that  state  were  reached 
he  foresaw  that  the  proletariat  would  be  worse  off 
than  any  of  the  other  classes ;  so  much  so,  indeed, 
that  all  the  gains  the  socialists  had  made  in  the 
last  "two  generations  would  vanish  in  a  sea  of 
blood,  without  leaving  a  trace  behind."  Accord- 
ingly, he  believed  it  to  be  desperately  urgent  that 
peace  should  be  arrived  at  on  any  terms.  It 
mattered  little  to  him  that  it  should  be  a  German 
peace,  leaving  German  despotism,  based  on  Jun- 


178   VOLLEYS  FROM  A  NON-COMBATANT 

kerdom  and  the  army,  actually  if  not  avowedly 
intact.     He  says: 

Such  a  struggle  for  peace  means  for  us  not  only  a  fight  to 
save  humanity's  material  and  cultural  possessions  from  fur- 
ther insane  destruction.  It  is  for  us  primarily  a  fight  to 
preserve  the  revolutionary  energy  of  the  proletariat.  To  as- 
semble the  ranks  of  the  proletariat  in  a  fight  for  peace  means 
again  to  place  the  forces  of  revolutionary  socialism  against 
raging,  tearing  imperialism  on  the  whole  front. 

Thus  the  Bolshevist  peace  into  which  Trotzky 
would  inveigle  us  holds  two  possibilities  for  this 
war-worn,  blood-choked  world:  Either  the  Ger- 
man Empire,  controlling  more  than  two  hundred 
million  people,  will  proceed,  as  soon  as  it  can 
conscript  its  able-bodied  men  into  armies  and 
equip  them,  to  conquer  the  world;  or  if,  by  some 
miracle  which  neither  Trotzky  nor  anybody  else 
describes,  Germany  is  transformed  into  a  peace- 
loving  "female"  race,  then  the  proletariat  will 
rise  up  and  blight  the  world  with  such  a  revolu- 
tion as  it  has  never  even  dreamed  of.  Trotzky 
remarks : 

The  present  war  has  wrenched  the  hammer  out  of  the 
worker's  hand  and  put  a  gun  into  his  hand  instead.  And 
the  worker,  who  has  been  tied  down  by  the  machinery  of  the 
capitalist  system,  is  suddenly  torn  from  his  usual  setting  and 
taught  to  place  the  aims  of  society  above  happiness  at  home, 


DESPOTISM  BY  THE  DREGS  179 

and  even  life  itself.  With  the  weapon  in  his  hand  that  he 
himself  has  forged,  the  worker  is  put  in  a  position  where  the 
political  destiny  of  the  state  is  directly  dependent  upon  him. 

In  quoting  Trotzky's  words  I  would  beg  the 
reader  to  understand  that  he  means  them  literally. 
Monstrous  as  it  may  seem  to  the  average  intelligent 
American  that  any  one  could  await  complacently 
a  world  either  shackled  to  German  despotism  or 
demolished  by  an  earthquake  of  world-wide  range, 
Trotzky  and  his  friends  and  his  dupes  in  every 
country  look  forward  to  one  or  the  other  of  these 
alternatives. 

Thanks  to  Trotzky  and  Lenine,  and  their 
betrayal  of  Russia,  we  know  what  Bolshevikism 
aims  at  and  what  it  has  already  done.  There  are 
Bolsheviki  in  all  countries,  but  the  Russian  variety 
is  the  reductio  ad  absurdum  of  them  all.  They  set 
out  with  an  implacable  hatred  of  tyranny  and 
immediately  surrendered  to  the  tyranny  of  Ger- 
many. More  gullible  creatures  have  not  been 
known  in  history.  They  profess  to  yearn  for  peace, 
but  it  is  not  the  peace  of  justice,  not  the  peace  of 
democracy,  but  a  peace  in  which  the  Social  Inter- 
national may  at  once  overturn  whatever  remains 
of  civilized  government. 

To  think  of  surrendering  the  last  shred  of  law 
and  order  to  such  incompetent  visionaries  is  crazy ! 


i8o  VOLLEYS  FROM  A  NON-COMBATANT 

But  it  is  against  this  very  danger  that  the  states- 
men of  the  Allies  must  be  on  their  guard.  These 
proletarians  pretend  that  they  are  international  and 
aim  at  no  narrowing  local  patriotism.  In  fact, 
however,  the  German  socialists  remain  incurably 
German,  and  they  hoped,  at  the  congress  at 
Stockholm,  to  seduce  and  swindle  the  other 
national  socialist  bodies  as  they  succeeded  in  doing 
with  the  Russian.  In  the  United  States  the  I. 
W.  W.,  who  represent  the  militant  wing  of  the 
proletariat,  have  not  disguised  their  pro-German 
purposes. 

There  are  sentimental  souls  whose  pity  for  the 
wretched  leads  them  not  merely  to  defend  the 
Bolsheviki,  wherever  they  may  be,  but  even  to 
justify  and  eulogize  them.  In  their  philanthropic 
hearts  they  feel  a  glow  of  self-satisfaction  throb- 
bing at  what  they  call  the  wrecks  and  slaves 
of  capitalism.  They  are  as  surely  the  enemies 
of  justice  and  humanity  as  are  the  pacifists. 
Under  the  mask  of  aiding  downtrodden  pro- 
letarians they  are  actively  engaged  in  strengthen- 
ing the  Germans.  Make  no  mistake  about  this, 
you  ladies  who  flit  hysterically  from  fad  to  fad 
and  just  now  weave  garlands  for  the  Bolsheviki. 

There  is  but  one  moral:  Civilization  must  beat 
Hun  barbarism  and  win  this  war.  That  accom- 


DESPOTISM  BY  THE  DREGS          181 

plished,  the  world  will  turn  to  social  and  economic 
questions  and  settle  them  through  righteousness 
and  through  justice.  To  stop  the  war  now,  at 
the  plea  of  socialists  and  the  proletariat,  would 
be  to  betray  all  classes  and  the  dominion  of  the 
world  to  the  Hun,  whose  rule  is  the  negation  of 
civilization. 


I 


VII 
ITALY'S  GREAT  SERVICE  IN  THE  WAR1 

I 

TALY  has  been  the  most  misunderstood  and 
consequently  the  most  misjudged  of  all  the 
Allies.  It  was  only  after  the  serious  disaster  at 
Caporetto,  in  October,  1917,  that  we  and  the 
French  and  English  came  to  recognize  officially 
the  greatness  of  the  task  which  Italy  had  had  to 
accomplish  and  the  reasons  for  her  partial  failure. 
She  had  three  difficulties  to  overcome — diplomatic 
entanglements,  material  and  financial  obstacles, 
and  internal  enemies. 

Her  chief  diplomatic  entanglement  when  the 
war  began  came  from  the  fact,  that  for  thirty-two 
years  she  had  been  a  partner  with  Germany  and 
Austria  in  the  Triple  Alliance.  This  secret  agree- 
ment had  proved  to  be  the  most  lasting  of  all 
Bismarck's  international  arrangements.  Having 
created  the  German  Empire  in  1871,  as  the  first 
fruits  of  his  victory  over  the  French,  he  laid  about 


World's  Work,  August,  1918. 

182 


ITALY'S  GREAT  SERVICE  183 

to  discover  the  means  by  which  he  might  assure 
the  permanence.  He  saw  clearly  enough  that  the 
day  would  come  when  an  irresistible  conflict  would 
break  out  between  the  rising  forces  of  democracy 
and  the  long-established  power  of  despotism,  and 
he  intended  to  strengthen  and  prepare  Germany  to 
be  the  last  stronghold  of  despotism.  He  knew  that 
the  House  of  Hohenzollern  had  won  all  its  victories, 
at  home  and  abroad,  under  despotic  principles; 
he  ridiculed  publicly  the  incapacity  of  the  Germans 
for  self-government,  and  he  understood  clearly 
that  their  innate  servility  to  their  rulers  and 
their  devotion  to  militarism  made  them  willing 
tools  of  their  despots. 

In  his  desire  to  render  despotism  invincible 
he  thought  of  uniting  Austria  and  Russia  with 
Germany  in  an  alliance  for  mutual  defence.  But 
Russia  declined  his  overtures;  not  that  the  Czar 
had  any  intention  of  abandoning  despotism  in 
governing  Russia,  but  that  he  preferred  to  be  his 
own  despot,  and  he  was  sufficiently  astute  to  see 
that  whoever  would  ride  on  the  same  horse  with 
Bismarck  must  ride  behind.  Foiled  in  this  scheme, 
Bismarck  had  to  look  round  for  another  partner. 

Regarding  France  both  as  the  chief  champion 
of  democracy  in  continental  Europe,  and  as  the 
nation  which  would  be  most  likely  to  form  any 


1 84  VOLLEYS  FROM  A  NON-COMBATANT 

league  and  to  seize  any  occasion  for  attacking 
Germany,  he  tried  less  than  five  years  after  the 
Franco-Prussian  War  ended  to  stir  up  another 
quarrel  with  her,  in  which  he  said  he  would  "bleed 
her  white"  beyond  all  hope  of  recovery;  and  he 
never  ceased  to  regret  that  he  had  not  reduced 
her  to  a  mere  province  in  1871.  To  isolate  her 
became  the  dominant  purpose  of  his  statecraft. 
One  way  of  doing  this  was  to  kindle  hatred  be- 
tween Italy  and  France.  There  being  already  a 
good  deal  of  friction  between  those  countries,  he 
made  this  dynamic  by  an  overt  act. 

Italy  had  long  coveted  Tunis  as  an  African 
colony  on  the  northern  shore  of  the  Mediterranean. 
The  French,  who  already  possessed  Algeria,  wished 
to  expand  over  Tunis  also,  and  Bismarck  intimated 
that  neither  he  nor  the  English  would  raise  any 
objections.  So  the  French  took  Tunis,  and  thereby 
aroused  a  storm  of  rage  against  them  throughout 
Italy.  The  transaction  cost  Bismarck  nothing, 
but  it  fomented  the  hatred  which  he  desired  be- 
tween the  two  Latin  countries.  It  also  created 
in  the  Italians  a  sense  of  their  isolation,  amounting 
almost  to  helplessness,  which  made  them  easy 
victims  of  his  further  seduction;  for  of  course  they 
were  unaware  that  he  had  abetted  the  French  in 
seizing  Tunis. 


ITALY'S  GREAT  SERVICE  185 

United  Italy  was  a  young  nation  barely  ten 
years  old,  and  she  had  not  yet  outlived  the  curse 
of  sectionalism  which  left  her  weak  at  home  and 
unfeared  abroad.  She  had  to  catch  up  with  her 
civilized  neighbours  in  education,  in  railroads,  in 
telegraphs,  and  in  all  the  other  organs  of  modern 
material  progress.  She  was  tremendously  handi- 
capped by  lack  of  coal  and  iron ;  she  was  very  poor 
in  the  means  of  producing  wealth;  and  she  was 
staggering  under  the  debts  of  the  former  small 
states  out  of  which  she  grew.  A  permanent 
cause  of  anxiety  lurked  in  her  very  midst;  this 
was  the  residence  at  Rome  of  the  Pope,  whose 
most  zealous  adherents  in  Catholic  countries 
constantly  threatened  to  reestablish  his  temporal 
power.  But  what  better  protection  could  she 
have  against  Papal  intrigues  than  Germany,  the 
chief  Protestant  power  on  the  Continent? 

Accordingly,  by  the  year  1881  the  Italians 
were  ready — through  Bismarck's  manipulations, 
which  they  did  not  suspect — to  think  favourably 
of  the  suggestion  to  join  Germany  in  an  alliance. 
They  found  that  they  would  have  to  include 
Austria  also,  and  this  was  a  very  bitter  proposal, 
because  the  Italians  had  only  recently  fought 
their  way  to  independence  from  Austrian  domi- 
ion.  Nevertheless,  the  Italian  Government  and 


i86  VOLLEYS  FROM  A  NON-COMBATANT 

many  of  the  political  leaders  consented  to  the 
alliance,  magnifying  to  its  largest  proportions  the 
fact  that  Italy  was  a  partner  of  Germany,  and 
paying  as  little  attention  as  possible  to  Austria. 

This  Triple  Alliance  was  purely  defensive.  The 
vital  clause  in  it  bound  the  other  members  to  go 
to  the  aid  of  the  third  in  case  he  were  attacked. 
The  terms  of  the  treaty  were  kept  secret  for  many 
years  but  its  substance  soon  leaked  out.  What 
did  Italy  get  from  it?  Most  of  her  gain  was 
theoretical:  the  alliance  would  protect  her  from 
an  attack  by  France  and  would  render  improbable 
any  attempt  by  Austria  to  restore  the  Pope.  It 
also  somewhat  increased  her  feeling  of  importance, 
and  her  self-reliance.  But  it  opened  the  door  to 
"peaceful  penetration"  by  Germany,  and  reduced 
her  almost  to  the  state  of  Germany's  vassal  in 
commerce  and  in  industry  before  the  year  1914. 

When  the  war  was  imminent,  in  July  in  that 
year,  the  world  speculated  as  to  what  Italy  would 
do.  Being  a  member  of  the  Triple  Alliance,  it 
was  assumed,  by  those  who  form  their  opinions 
hastily,  that  she  would  take  part  on  the  side  of 
her  allies.  The  suspense  we  all  felt  was  almost 
intolerable.  Finally,  late  in  the  night  of  July  3ist, 
Italy  announced  to  France  that  she  would  not 
take  part  against  the  Allies,  but  would  denounce 


ITALY'S  GREAT  SERVICE  187 

the  Triple  Alliance  and  retire  from  it.  The  relief 
caused  by  this  announcement  was  almost  incal- 
culable. Italy's  action  permitted  the  French  to 
withdraw  several  army  corps  from  the  Italian 
frontier,  and  to  transfer  them  to  the  north  to  meet 
the  German  shock.  The  moral  significance  was 
equally  great:  the  Italians — having  had,  as  part- 
ners of  the  Teutons,  special  means  of  knowing 
the  origins  of  the  war — declared  that  it  was 
aggressive  and  not  defensive,  thus  exposing  for 
all  time  the  pretexts  and  excuses  of  the  German 
statesmen,  and  the  lies  of  the  German  Kaiser. 

The  Germans  cried  out  that  the  Italians  had 
betrayed  the  pledge  they  had  given  in  the  Triple 
Alliance,  but  this  charge  was  false,  as  the  terms 
of  that  treaty  made  evident.  In  order  that  the 
reader  may  have  no  doubt  of  this,  I  quote 
Article  III  of  the  treaty: 

If  one  or  two  of  the  High  Contracting  Parties  should 
be  attacked  without  direct  provocation  on  their  part,  and 
be  engaged  in  war  with  two  or  several  Great  Powers  not  sig- 
natory to  this  Treaty,  the  casus  fcederis  shall  apply  simultane- 
ously to  all  the  High  Contracting  Powers. 

It  was  tacitly  understood,  however,  that  Italy 
should  not  be  drawn  into  war  with  England,  in 
case  that  country  were  at  war  with  Germany  or 
Austria. 


i88  VOLLEYS  FROM  A  NON-COMBATANT 

In  1914  the  Germans  were  bent  on  discrediting 
Italy,  so  that  the  Allies  would  put  no  trust  in  her. 
The  great  joy  that  we  experienced  on  knowing 
that  Italy  would  not  aid  the  Teutons  was  soon 
followed  by  a  puzzled  surprise.  We  took  it  for 
granted  that  her  break  with  them  implied  that 
she  would  fight  against  them.  Nevertheless,  week 
followed  week  during  that  awful  month  of  August, 
when  the  Huns  swept  through  France,  but  Italy 
made  no  sign  of  moving.  In  early  September, 
Foch  defeated  the  German  hosts  at  the  Marne, 
and  then  they  made  their  first  great  drive  for 
Calais,  but  still  the  Italians  did  not  move.  Then 
rumours  flew  about — rumours  which  the  Ger- 
mans did  their  utmost  to  spread — that  the  Italians 
were  soulless  mercenaries,  vilely  waiting  to  see 
which  of  the  combatants  would  pay  them  best 
for  their  support. 

The  autumn  passed  by,  winter  came  on,  the 
Germans  intrenched  themselves  from  the  Channel 
to  Switzerland;  the  French  and  the  English 
urgently  needed  reinforcements  on  the  western 
front.  Still  the  Italians  remained  impassive;  im- 
passive, but  not  idle,  for  they  devoted  themselves 
to  getting  ready  a  large  army,  because  the  out- 
break of  the  war  had  found  them  exhausted  in 
munitions  and  supplies  as  well  as  in  troops— 


ITALY'S  GREAT  SERVICE  189 

their  two  years'  campaign  in  Tripoli  and  against 
the  Turks  having  left  them  quite  unprepared  for 
a  new  and  greater  conflict. 

Now  this  was  the  reason — this  unpreparedness — 
which  caused  Italy  to  remain  neutral  throughout 
the  winter  of  1914-15.  She  was  not,  as  the  Germans 
insinuated,  putting  her  support  at  the  service  of 
the  highest  bidder,  although  Rome  was  infested  by 
German  intriguers  and  by  the  agents  of  the  Allies, 
each  of  whom  tried  to  win  her  over  by  the  strongest 
inducements.  Just  as  the  Kaiser  sent  over  here 
some  of  his  glib  corrupters,  like  Dernburg,  so  he 
sent  a  lot  of  them  into  Italy,  and  it  was  perhaps 
evidence  that  he  then  regarded  it  more  important 
to  win  Italy  over  than  the  United  States,  that  he 
despatched  to  Rome  the  oiliest,  sleekest,  and 
most  resourceful  of  all  his  trained  seducers,  Prince 
Biilow. 

To  understand  how  promising  the  field  was  in 
which  Biilow  worked,  we  must  remember  that  for 
twenty-five  years  German  capital  had  been  domi- 
nating northern  Italy.  Under  its  impulse,  banks, 
factories,  mills,  steamship  companies,  and  a  vigor- 
ous foreign  trade  had  sprung  up  and  prospered. 
Naturally,  the  Germans,  who  had  the  money, 
controlled  these  enterprises  and  put  Germans  in  to 
manage  them.  German  interests  gradually  be- 


190  VOLLEYS  FROM  A  NON-COMBATANT 

came  very  powerful,  and  the  native  Italians  found 
that  deputies  representing  those  interests  were 
elected  to  parliament,  and  had  much  influence, 
direct  or  indirect,  on  legislation.  So  Prince  Biilow 
could  count  on  this  support.  He  could  count 
also  on  a  certain  section  of  the  Italian  nobility; 
either  because  it  had  never  forgotten  its  allegiance 
to  its  former  petty  rulers  before  the  days  of  United 
Italy,  or  because  the  aristocratic  class  was  more  or 
less  solidaire  in  all  countries.  It  required  no  great 
cleverness  to  convince  them  that  autocratic  Ger- 
many was  fighting  for  them,  because  it  was  bent 
on  destroying  democracy — the  system  which,  if 
it  finally  triumphed,  would  do  away  with  nobles 
and  monarchs  too. 

Biilow  had  a  third  ally  in  the  Blacks  (the  Papal 
party  which  cared  nothing  for  the  welfare  of  Italy 
but  has  always  gladly  clasped  the  hand  of  any 
accomplice,  or  welcomed  any  scheme  that  aimed 
at  breaking  up  the  Italian  Kingdom — the  condi- 
tion precedent  to  the  restoration  of  the  Pope's 
temporal  power.)  There  was  a  fourth  element 
also  with  which  the  wily  Biilow  coquetted,  the 
socialists.  We  can  judge  now  from  having  seen 
the  effects  of  German  intrigues  on  the  Russian 
socialists,  how  dangerous  Billow's  manipulation 
of  the  Italian  threatened  to  be.  One  of  the 


ITALY'S  GREAT  SERVICE  191 

astonishing  facts  of  the  past  four  years  is  that  the 
socialists  of  all  the  other  countries,  although  they 
protest  that  they  are  international,  allow  them- 
selves to  become  willing  dupes,  victims,  or  accom- 
plices, of  the  German  socialists.  Socialism  will  have 
a  hard  task  when  it  tries  to  explain  this  monstrous 
incongruity. 

The  Prince  not  only  carried  in  his  pocket  vulgar 
gold  for  buying  those  who  were  purchasable, 
but  he  carried  in  his  portfolio  enticing  offers  which 
he  dangled  before  the  Italian  Government.  When 
at  last  he  realized  that  he  could  neither  frighten 
nor  cajole  Italy  into  fighting  alongside  of  her 
partners  in  the  Triple  Alliance,  he  worked  des- 
perately to  persuade  her  to  remain  neutral,  and 
with  this  in  view,  he  promised  her  the  Trentino 
and  Trieste  if  she  would  not  join  the  Allies.  The 
territory  he  so  coolly  offered  belonged  to  Austria 
and  not  to  Germany,  but  he  knew,  and  the  Kaiser 
knew,  and  the  world  now  knows,  that  Austria  was 
virtually  Germany's  vassal,  and  would  have  to 
accept  whatever  arrangements  the  German  Kaiser 
dictated. 

Competing  with  Biilow  were  the  French  and  the 
English  spokesmen,  who  used  arguments  which  in 
general  appealed  to  the  higher  nature  and  ideals 
of  the  Italians.  They  made  it  plain  that  if  Italy — 


I92  VOLLEYS  FROM  A  NON-COMBATANT 

the  country  which  had  achieved  her  independence 
through  the  principle  of  freedom,  the  country 
whose  founders  were  Mazzini,  Garibaldi,  and 
Cavour  (the  three  apostles  of  freedom) — were  to 
side  with  Germany,  she  would  deny  her  guiding 
principles,  and  become  herself  the  tool  of  despot- 
ism. No  doubt  also  they  urged  her  to  understand 
that  in  the  long  run  her  material  prosperity  was 
likely  to  be  bound  up  in  friendship  with  the  western 
powers  and  not  with  the  Teutons.  They,  too, 
promised  her  that  at  the  close  of  the  war  she  should 
have  back  Unredeemed  Italy,  and  they  were  willing 
to  give  her  immediately  a  subsidy — not  very  large — 
toward  paying  the  cost  of  putting  her  army  into 
the  field. 

Two  things  prevented  her  from  being  lured  by 
Prince  Billow :  first,  the  loyalty  of  King  Victor 
Emmanuel  to  the  tradition  of  liberty,  and,  next, 
the  rising  tide  of  anti-German  public  opinion 
among  the  masses  and  the  intellectual  leaders  of  the 
country. 

At  last,  on  May  24,  1915,  her  military  pre- 
parations having  been  completed,  Italy,  amid  a 
burst  of  popular  enthusiasm,  declared  war  on 
Austria. 

Why  on  Austria  alone?  Because  she  regarded 
Austria  as  the  actual  provoker  of  the  war.  The 


ITALY'S  GREAT  SERVICE  193 

ultimate  criminal  was  unquestionably  Germany, 
which  had  been  waiting  for  many  years  for  a 
pretext  for  war.  Recently,  Germany  had  in- 
stigated Austria  to  force  the  issue  with  Serbia,  and 
at  the  last  moment,  when  Austria  seemed  on  the 
point  of  coming  to  a  peaceful  understanding  with 
Russia,  the  German  Emperor  had  sent  to  France 
and  to  Russia  his  ultimatums  which  made  peace 
impossible.  Italy  had  also  other  reasons  for  aiming 
at  Austria  rather  than  at  Germany — or  at  both: 
Austria  was  her  immediate  neighbour;  Austria 
held  the  territory  of  Unredeemed  Italy  which  was 
to  be  delivered  from  bondage;  Austria,  as  Italy's 
hereditary  enemy  and  oppressor,  kindled  the  in- 
stinctive animosity  of  the  Italians. 

Once  at  war,  Italy  prosecuted  it  with  all  her 
resources.  In  the  course  of  a  year  she  had  a  mil- 
lion men  under  arms  at  or  near  the  front.  She 
drilled  two  million  more,  but  she  had  not  enough 
arms  or  munitions  or  uniforms  to  equip  them.  She 
had  to  fight  over  the  most  difficult  terrain  in 
Europe — in  the  valleys  and  on  the  ridges  of  the 
Alps  which  formed  the  frontier  between  her  and 
Austria.  When  that  frontier  was  drawn  by  Aus- 
tria, in  1866,  it  left  all  the  approaches  to  Italy 
through  the  Alpine  passes  open  to  Austrian  in- 
vasion, and  this  of  course  made  it  doubly  difrl- 


194  VOLLEYS  FROM  A  NON-COMBATANT 

cult  for  the  Italians  to  advance  into  the  enemy's 
country. 

I  do  not  intend  to  describe  the  campaign  in  de- 
tail. Suffice  it  to  say  that  the  Italians  succeeded 
in  taking  and  holding  a  strip  of  the  mountainous 
territory,  and  that  on  the  east  they  occupied  all  of 
the  Venetian  Plain  as  far  as  the  Carnic  Alps. 
Their  feats  of  engineering,  by  which  they  construct- 
ed roads  over  the  mountains,  and  made  tunnels 
through  them;  the  fortitude  with  which  month 
after  month  they  clung  to  crags  and  peaks  and 
intrenchments  amid  the  snow  in  perilous  positions, 
sometimes  10,000  feet  high;  the  ingenuity  with 
which  they  transported  heavy  guns  and  all  their 
supplies  on  wire  cables  slung  from  crag  to  crag 
far  above  the  valleys;  the  stern  pluck  with  which 
they  endured  unremittent  cold,  Alpine  blizzards, 
and  slowly  diminishing  rations,  are  among  the 
marvels  of  even  this  war. 

We  see  now  that  the  course  which,  in  a  measure, 
checked  all  these  efforts  was  that  fatal  lack  of  a 
single  military  command  over  all  of  the  Allied 
armies  in  the  west — a  defect  which  was  remedied 
only  in  March,  1918,  after  the  first  colossal  German 
drive  in  Picardy  had  startled  the  British  and 
French.  Then  they  appointed  General  Foch  and 
secured  a  unification  of  military  direction  which 


ITALY'S  GREAT  SERVICE  195 

will,  let  us  hope,  bring  a  speedy  victory.  But  in 
1915,  1916,  and  1917,  the  armies  fought  without 
proper  coordination.  If  this  handicapped  the 
British  and  the  French,  campaigning  side  by  side  in 
France,  still  more  did  it  harm  the  Italians,  isolated 
from  the  Allies  on  the  west  both  by  the  whole 
stretch  of  Switzerland  and  by  the  feeling  that  they 
had  no  direct  contact  with  them.  In  time  it  came 
to  seem  as  if  Italy  were  fighting  a  war  of  her  own, 
which  only  remotely  concerned  the  Great  Cause. 
The  despatches  gave  brief  reports  of  her  exploits 
among  the  Alps  and  along  the  Isonzo,  but  few  per- 
sons stopped  to  consider  what  these  exploits  meant. 
To  the  lack  of  unison  inherent  in  the  general 
Allied  plan,  was  added  the  suspicion  that  the  French 
and  the  English  did  not  sympathize  with  some 
of  Italy's  objects.  It  was  whispered  that  in  com- 
ing into  the  war  the  Italians  had  stipulated  that, 
at  its  close,  if  the  Entente  won,  Italy  should  re- 
ceive certain  territory  along  the  eastern  shore  of 
the  Adriatic.  These  expectations  did  not  please  the 
French  and  the  English,  who  had  plans  of  their  own 
for  Dalmatia  and  thought  that  insistence  on  the 
Italian  claims  would  greatly  complicate  the  solu- 
tion of  the  Balkan  problem.  There  may  have 
been  causes  of  grievance  which  I  do  not  know  of; 
but  I  feel  that  it  was  wholly  reasonable  for  Italy 


i96  VOLLEYS  FROM  A  NON-COMBATANT 

to  seek  to  protect  herself  from  future  Teutonic  raids 
by  controlling  the  eastern  shore  of  the  Adriatic 
and  its  chief  ports.  The  war  has  shown  conclu- 
sively that  so  long  as  Hun  submarines  can  dart  out 
of  those  ports  and  out  of  the  hiding  places  which 
abound  on  that  coast,  the  eastern  shore  of  Italy 
and  all  her  commerce  in  the  Adriatic  will  be  at  the 
mercy  of  the  Huns. 

Leaving  these  vague  rumours  out  of  considera- 
tion we  cannot  but  feel  that  the  desire  of  the  Italians 
to  do  all  that  they  could  alone  tended  to  keep  them 
somewhat  aloof  from  their  partners.  Their  mo- 
tives sprang  from  a  noble  source.  Italy  ranked 
among  the  Great  Powers  by  courtesy  rather  than 
by  actual  strength;  and  so  she  proudly  resolved 
to  prove  herself  in  this  ordeal  worthy  of  her  as- 
sumed state.  Accordingly,  as  long  as  her  raw 
material  lasted,  she  made  her  own  guns  and  muni- 
tions and  provided  for  all  her  needs,  without  beg- 
ging or  borrowing.  The  meagre  despatches  that 
came  from  her  front  usually  brought  good  news 
and  led  the  world  to  suppose  that  she  was  not  only 
holding  her  own  but  advancing.  Her  capture  of 
Gorizia — one  of  the  most  glorious  displays  of  valour 
during  the  war — made  us  all  believe  that  she  was 
on  the  point  of  driving  the  Austrians  back  to 
Laibach  and  beyond. 


ITALY'S  GREAT  SERVICE  197 

The  great  calamity  of  Caporetto,  on  October  27, 
1917,  took  the  world  by  surprise.  Everyone  out- 
side of  Italy  marvelled  how  it  was  that  this  rout 
should  almost  overwhelm  her  so  soon  after  we  had 
received  bulletins  announcing  her  brilliant  advance. 
In  order  to  understand  the  disaster  which  swept 
Cadorna's  army  back  from  the  Isonzo  to  the  Piave 
and  cost  him  the  loss  of  probably  200,000  men  and 
immense  stores  and  material,  we  must  glance  at  the 
internal  condition  of  Italy  from  the  time  she  en- 
tered the  war.  Many  of  the  symptoms  of  her 
disease  were  common  to  our  own  case.  There  was 
a  considerable  peace  party  made  up  of  business 
men  who  did  not  wish  to  have  their  prosperity 
interrupted  by  war.  There  were  also  pacifists — 
persons  without  a  country  or  in  many  cases,  with 
a  secret  preference  for  Germany.  The  socialists, 
who  in  Italy,  as  well  as  in  other  Entente  lands  and 
in  the  United  States,  were  actually  under  German 
control,  whether  they  admitted  it  or  not,  added 
many  recruits  to  the  Anti-War  League.  Many 
Clericals  sided  with  the  Teutons  as  a  matter  of 
course,  for  Austria  was  the  chief  Catholic  nation 
in  Europe.  Since  his  election  the  Italians  have 
believed —  on  what  evidence  does  not  appear — 
that  Pope  Benedict  XV  is  pro-German.  He  belonged 
to  one  of  the  old  reactionary  aristocratic  families 


i98  VOLLEYS  FROM  A  NON-COMBATANT 

of  Genoa — nobles  who  correspond  in  spirit  to  the 
Junkers  of  Prussia.  It  was  believed  in  Italy  that  the 
Pope  had  been  promised  by  both  the  German  and 
the  Austrian  Kaisers  that  they  would  restore  his 
temporal  power  at  the  end  of  the  war.  The  Ultra- 
montane Diet  of  Bavaria  openly  announced  that 
this  was  one  of  the  aims  of  the  war.  The  failure 
of  the  Pope  to  protest  against  the  atrocities  of  the 
Huns,  or  to  rank  himself  squarely  from  the  be- 
ginning on  the  side  of  the  peoples  struggling  in  be- 
half of  Christian  civilization,  seemed  to  justify  the 
assumption  of  the  Italians  that  he  was  against  the 
Allies;  and  the  fact  that  he  put  forth  appeals  for 
peace,  precisely  at  those  times  when  the  peace  he 
advocated  would  mean  a  complete  victory  for  the 
Germans,  strengthened  the  suspicion  of  his  pro- 
German  desires. 

Needless  to  say  the  head  of  this  octopus  of 
treachery  and  discord  was  the  German  propaganda, 
which  used  now  one  tentacle  and  now  another.  It 
went  so  far  as  to  concoct  a  fake  copy  of  the  Secolo 
newspaper  of  Milan  in  which  among  genuine  news 
it  published  such  lies  as  that  the  French  had  turned 
against  the  Italians,  had  captured  Turin,  and  were 
besieging  Milan;  also  that  the  Austrians  yearned 
for  peace  and  wished  to  fraternize  with  their  Italian 
brothers.  And  in  fact  when  the  Austrians  ad- 


ITALY'S  GREAT  SERVICE  199 

vanced  on  the  fatal  morning  of  October  27th,  they 
threw  up  their  hands  and  shouted  "Kamerad!" 
The  Italians  laid  down  their  weapons  and  advanced 
to  meet  the  Austrians,  and  then  the  Germans,  who 
had  been  screened  behind  the  Austrians,  rushed 
forward,  opened  fire,  and  the  panic  began.  For 
months  previous  to  this  priests  who  served  as 
chaplains,  and  insidious  lay  propagandists  whis- 
pered disloyalty  into  the  ears  of  the  troops.  An 
officer,  who  was  with  the  army  at  that  time,  has 
told  me  that  the  Pope's  message  created  a  most 
depressing  effect  among  them.  It  turned  their 
thoughts  away  from  the  unremitting  prosecution 
of  the  war  to  the  acceptance  of  peace — peace  on 
any  terms,  regardless  of  consequences. 

The  gradual  diminishing  of  rations  caused  a 
slackening  of  determination  and  morale.  A  soldier 
requires  a  modicum  of  food  in  order  to  main- 
tain his  resolve  at  the  highest  pitch;  slow  starva- 
tion saps  valour.  You  can  judge  how  near  the 
Italian  soldiers  were  to  starvation  when  you  know 
that  for  awhile  before  Caporetto  some  of  the  troops 
were  reduced  to  seven  dried  chestnuts  apiece  for 
their  morning  ration.  More  even  than  for  them- 
selves they  worried  over  the  destitution  of  their 
wives  and  children  from  whom  they  had  infrequent 
or  no  news.  The  rumour  that  several  officers 


200  VOLLEYS  FROM  A  NON-COMBATANT 

proved  traitors  at  the  moment  of  the  Hun's  camou- 
flaged attack  has  not  yet  been  fully  verified.  But 
there  is  reason  to  believe  in  its  truth  because  a 
dozen  or  more  of  the  suspected  traitors  were  shot. 

Note  that  Italy  was  now  waging  war  against 
both  Germany  and  Austria.  She  broke  with  Ger- 
many in  1916.  Many  outsiders,  Americans  among 
others,  wondered  why  she  delayed  so  long,  but  the 
reason  was  obvious  and  sufficient.  As  I  hinted 
above,  thirty  years  of  "peaceful  penetration"  had 
left  northern  Italy  in  the  hands  of  Germany.  She 
owned  the  capital,  she  managed  the  industries  and 
commerce.  Italy  had  to  wait  until  she  could  train 
men  of  her  own  to  replace  the  German  experts 
who  directed  the  mills  and  factories  and  other 
works.  When  she  was  sure  that  this  necessary 
business  would  go  on  under  her  own  superinten- 
dence, she  declared  war  on  Germany  also.  She 
had  provocation  enough,  for  Since  1915  German 
officers  and  even  German  troops  had  fought  in  the 
Austrian  armies  against  her;  the  airplanes  which 
began  to  harass  her  beautiful  cities  were  German; 
and  German  were  the  submarines  which  glided  out 
of  Pola  and  other  ports,  and  destroyed  her  shipping. 

-We  ought  not  to  forget  that  it  took  courage  on 
the  part  of  Italy  to  throw  down  the  gauntlet  to 
Germany,  because  the  fate  of  Belgium  and  of  Po- 


ITALY'S  GREAT  SERVICE  201 

land  warned  her  that  if  the  German  armies  entered 
her  territory  they  would  shrink  from  no  atrocity 
and  no  bestiality.  If  the  Huns  won  the  war,  Aus- 
tria would  undoubtedly  make  the  Italians  pay 
dearly;  but  the  Germans  would,  according  to  their 
nature,  vent  their  hatred  in  ways  more  outrageous 
than  the  Austrians.  Looking  far  ahead  also,  Italy 
perceived  that  so  much  of  her  trade  as  depended  on 
German  connections  would  be  greatly  affected  if 
the  quarrel  were  between  her  and  Germany  instead 
of  merely  between  her  and  Austria.  Nevertheless, 
when  the  time  was  ripe  she  dared  to  confront 
Germany. 

Only  when  Cadorna's  army  was  rolled  back 
to  the  Piave,  did  France,  England,  and  the  United 
States  realize  the  situation.  When  the  possibility 
that  Italy  might  go  to  pieces  stared  them  in  the 
face,  they  at  last  understood  how  really  important, 
not  to  say  essential,  her  help  had  been.  They  rushed 
two  armies  to  check  her  retreat  and  to  give  her  aid 
in  reforming  her  shattered  corps  and  in  stiffening 
them  for  further  resistance.  Then  we  saw  the 
havoc  which  lack  of  coordination  had  wrought,  and 
we  accepted  the  assertion  that  the  Italian  front 
should  not  be  regarded  as  an  isolated  and  detached 
line  but  as  an  integral  part  of  the  entire  western 
front,  of  which  it  was  in  fact  the  right  wing. 


202  VOLLEYS  FROM  A  NON-COMBATANT 

As  we  perceived  the  causes  of  the  mistakes  and 
blunders,  we  could  measure  also  the  determination, 
resourcefulness,  and  tenacity  of  the  Italian  army 
during  its  two  years  and  a  half  of  fighting.  The 
difficulties  at  home  against  internal  conspirators 
and  pro-German  propagandists  were  revealed, 
and  we  were  filled  with  admiration  as  we  beheld, 
in  the  retrospect,  Italy's  plucky  and  proud  resis- 
tance in  the  face  of  her  waning  resources.  For 
example,  when  her  coal  supply,  which  she  drew 
from  England,  was  nearly  exhausted,  she  extended 
the  system  of  electrification,  by  which  her  indus- 
tries in  the  north  were  run  from  power  generated  by 
Alpine  rivers,  as  far  south  as  she  could.  And  her 
hungry  people  let  no  murmur  of  complaint  and  no 
whimper  of  their  poignant  suffering  be  heard  by 
the  world  outside. 

When  the  United  States  entered  the  war  in 
April,  1917,  the  Italians  received  the  news  with  a 
frenzy  of  joy.  They  felt  that  American  coopera- 
tion was  both  a  guarantee  of  final  victory  and  of 
immediate  relief  from  acute  distress.  We  had 
everything — men,  money,  munitions,  fuel,  and 
above  all,  food.  But  the  spring  passed  and  nothing 
more  than  usual  reached  Italy.  Spring  turned  to 
midsummer  and  midsummer  to  autumn,  and  still 
no  American  succour.  Cadorna's  army,  burrowing 


ITALY'S  GREAT  SERVICE  203 

and  crawling  forward  up  in  the  northeast  and  seeing 
its  food  supply  dwindle  to  the  ration  of  those  seven 
dried  chestnuts,  began  to  wonder  whether  the  talk 
about  help  from  America  was  all  an  illusion,  a  cruel 
falsehood.  They  began  to  fear  that  Italy  was 
abandoned  by  her  allies  and  by  the  world.  They 
had  done  their  utmost;  they  knew  that  they  could 
not  hold  out  much  longer,  and  they  saw  no  prospect 
of  being  rescued.  This  dark  doubt  also,  sank  into 
their  hearts  and  depressed  their  morale. 

The  eyes  of  our  Government  being  opened,  it 
sent,  and  has  continued  to  send  to  Italy,  so  far  as 
the  scanty  means  of  transportation  permitted, 
the  supplies  of  first  importance.  But  no  Ameri- 
can of  fine  instincts  can  fail  to  acknowledge  with  re- 
gret and  humiliation  the  part  which  our  official 
neglect  played  in  causing  the  Italian  debacle  last 
autumn.  It  took  that  to  rouse  our  officials  to  com- 
prehend the  imperative  need  to  saving  Italy,  just 
as  it  took  the  German  drive  at  Amiens  last  March 
to  rouse  them  to  the  desperate  need  of  sending  our 
troops  to  France  in  all  haste  and  to  speed  up  every 
preparation,  unless  we  would  allow  the  war  to  be 
lost  through  our  delays. 

We  deplore  now  not  only  the  actual  debacle, 
with  all  that  it  involved,  but  also  the  forfeiture  of 
the  victory  which  might  have  been  won  if  the  other 


204  VOLLEYS  FROM  A  NON-COMBATANT 

Allies  had  given  the  Italians  sufficient  support.  For 
it  now  seems  indisputable  that  they  were  right  in 
urging  that  the  most  feasible  way  to  end  the  war  in 
1917  was  by  crushing  Austria.  At  Caporetto,  the 
farthest  point  of  their  advance,  the  Italians  were 
only  a  few  miles  from  Laibach,  and  if  they  had  suc- 
ceeded in  reaching  that  place  they  could  have  driven 
so  deep  a  wedge  into  the  heart  of  Austria  that  she 
would  have  collapsed.  She  was  very  near  collapse : 
how  near,  is  proved  by  the  fact  that  the  Germans 
took  care  to  transfer  their  forces  from  the  Russian 
front  to  the  Austrian.  Had  Austria  crumbled 
before  the  Germans  came  to  her  rescue,  it  is  diffi- 
cult to  see  how  the  Germans  could  have  gone  on 
fighting  alone.  The  collapse  of  Austria  would 
have  smashed  the  Middle-Europe  dream  and  have 
cut  off  the  Bulgarians  and  the  Turks  from  their 
German  overlord.  The  loss  of  this  vital  pos- 
sibility must  be  charged  to  the  lack  of  a  central 
control  and  of  close  cooperation  among  the  Allies. 
Such  have  been  the  principal  ways  in  which 
Italy  has  served  the  cause  of  Civilization,  and 
has  aided  the  Allies  in  the  life-and-death  struggle 
with  Teutonic  Barbarism.  Her  refusal,  before 
war  was  declared,  to  join  her  partners  in  the 
Triple  Alliance  was  her  earliest  service;  and  when 
she  published  the  fact  that,  nearly  a  year  before, 


ITALY'S  GREAT  SERVICE  205 

Germany  and  Austria  had  urged  her  to  join  them 
then  in  their  war  of  aggression,  she  proved  that 
their  evil  design  on  the  peace  of  the  world  had 
been  long  premeditated.  By  not  allowing  herself 
to  be  stampeded  into  declaring  war  on  Austria 
until  she  was  fairly  well  equipped,  she  saved  the 
cause  from  beginning  its  campaign  under  the 
burden  of  a  serious  defeat;  for  she  could  not,  in 
August,  1914,  have  prevented  the  Austrians  from 
overrunning  northern  Italy.  This  disaster  would 
have  put  the  Italians  permanently  out  of  the  war, 
and  allowed  their  enemies  to  use  their  troops  else- 
where, besides  giving  them  the  advantage  of  a 
most  cheering  initial  success. 

Italy's  military  contribution  was  to  keep  busy 
a  large  part  of  the  Austrian  army.  If  the  Russians 
had  not  been  betrayed,  this  diversion  of  the 
Austrian  strength  might  have  sufficed  to  shatter 
the  Hapsburg  Empire  before  the  end  of  1916. 
To-day,  when  all  the  German  forces  are  pounding 
the  British  and  French  and  Americans  on  the 
western  front,  it  is  the  Italian  Army  along  the 
Brenta  and  the  Piave  which  prevents  the  Austrians 
from  going  to  reinforce  the  Germans  on  the  west. 

The  attempt  of  wily  German  propagandists, 
therefore,  to  disparage  Italy  has  no  real  basis. 
The  efforts  of  these  reptiles  to  sow  discord  by 


206  VOLLEYS  FROM  A  NON-COMBATANT 

insinuating  that  the  Americans  despise  the  Italians 
and  set  no  value  on  their  alliance,  have  been 
abortive,  as  they  should  be.  We  Americans 
understand  that  Italy,  like  the  United  States, 
was  not  hurried  into  the  war  after  a  few  days  of 
distracted  and  stormy  negotiations,  but  made 
her  choice  deliberately,  after  counting  the  danger 
and  the  cost.  She  might  have  stayed  out  in 
ignoble  neutrality.  Her  peril  was  immensely 
greater  than  ours,  but  she  resolved  to  be  true  to 
her  past  and  to  cleave  to  the  ideal  of  Liberty  which 
was  the  most  precious  legacy  she  had  inherited 
from  her  past.  She  deserves  the  gratitude  of 
civilized  men  to-day,  and  especially  whatever 
succour  her  allies  can  give  her.  She  is  sure  of  the 
praise  and  blessing  of  posterity  to-morrow  and 
ever  after. 


VIII 
JOHN  HAY'S  GOOD  DEED  IN  A  NAUGHTY  WORLD1 

THE  passion  for  landgrabbing,  which  may  be 
considered  one  of  the  very  real  causes  of  the 
great  war,  possessed  all  the  so-called  civilized 
nations  during  the  last  quarter  of  the  nineteenth 
century.  Through  the  immense  development  of 
industry  and  transportation,  due  to  the  advance 
in  science  and  in  invention,  the  countries  of  central 
and  northern  Europe  especially  saw  the  time 
approaching  when  they  would  need  more  space; 
for  the  increased  production  swelled  their  popula- 
tion and  they  sought  to  acquire  new  lands,  both 
for  their  surplus  population  and  to  furnish  new 
markets  for  their  products. 

The  continent  that  was  the  first  victim  of  their 
cupidity  was  Africa,  where  Europeans  had  settled 
only  on  the  fringe  of  the  seaboard.  So  Great 
Britain,  France,  Germany,  and  Portugal  allotted 
among  themselves  the  vast  regions  in  the  interior, 
most  of  which  had  never  been  explored  and  all  of 
which  were  peopled  by  the  original  black  natives. 

^Saturday  Evening  Post,  August  24,  1918. 

207 


208   VOLLEYS  FROM  A  NON-COMBATANT 

Italy  coveted  a  strip  along  the  Mediterranean, 
but  circumstances  did  not  permit  her  to  acquire 
it  then.  The  difficulties  of  colonization,  chief 
among  which  was  the  climate,  prevented  the  rapid 
settlement  of  Africa.  Then  suddenly  an  event 
occurred  that  turned  the  attention  of  the  land- 
grabbers  to  another  continent. 

In  1894,  to  the  astonishment  of  the  world,  the 
Japanese  Army  by  a  brief  and  decisive  campaign 
defeated  the  Chinese  and  held  China  at  its  mercy. 
At  that  time  Japan  numbered  about  forty  million 
inhabitants,  while  China  counted  four  hundred 
millions.  But  the  Japanese  blow  opened  the  eyes 
of  the  world  to  the  fact  that  China,  instead  of  be- 
ing powerful  in  proportion  to  her  numbers,  was 
like  a  great  ship  at  sea  whose  rudder  and  propeller 
and  engine  are  gone  and  whose  huge  bulk  leaves  her 
all  the  more  at  the  mercy  of  storms.  China  had 
long  been  a  rich  field  for  foreign  traders;  the  British 
had  held  Canton  as  their  own  port  and  various  na- 
tions had  secured  concessions  that  would  be  profit- 
able as  fast  as  they  were  exploited.  Now,  however, 
the  Europeans  would  not  be  satisfied  with  mere 
concessions  to  trade;  they  must  have  grants  of  prov- 
inces. 

Their  scientific  prospectors  had  reported  to 
them  the  existence  of  natural  resources — coal 


JOHN  HAY'S  GOOD  DEED  209 

deposits,  for  instance — of  incalculable  value;  and 
so  these  foreigners  grabbed  land  not  merely  with  a 
view  to  its  actual  producing  capacity  but  to  its 
promise  of  future  wealth.  To  control  the  railway 
system  or  the  steamboats  of  that  vast  empire 
would  give  the  concessionaires  not  merely  untold 
millions  but  also  great  political  power. 

At  the  very  end  of  the  nineteenth  century, 
therefore,  we  find  China  the  Esau  among  nations. 
For  a  mess  of  pottage  she  had  surrendered  her 
birthright  to  foreigners.  It  must  be  said,  of 
course,  that  she  did  this  under  compulsion;  but 
that  she  had  to  submit  to  this  compulsion  is  one 
of  the  most  tragic  warnings  in  history.  That  an 
empire  of  four  hundred  million  persons  should 
be  unable — through  disunity  and  administrative 
impotence  of  very  long  standing — to  defend  itself 
from  any  assailant  ought  to  teach  every  nation, 
large  and  small,  the  duty  of  arming  itself  adequately 
to  its  size. 

China  was  a  very  different  sort  of  booty  from 
Central  Africa  for  the  depredators.  She  had  been 
semi-civilized  for  thousands  of  years;  her  people 
were  docile  and  industrious;  their  products — 
particularly  tea — went  all  over  the  world;  their 
mineral  resources,  including  coal,  could  be  tapped 
without  great  difficulty.  Their  foreign  exploiters, 


210  VOLLEYS  FROM  A  NON-COMBATANT 

therefore,  in  getting  land  and  concessions  to  trade 
really  secured  the  immense  bodies  of  cheap  labour 
whose  products  would  be  shipped  to  Europe  and 
America  and  sold  at  a  large  profit. 

This  process  of  exploiting  native  labour  and 
putting  the  profits  therefrom  in  the  white  man's 
pocket  was  pleasantly  called  "bearing  the  white 
man's  burden."  So  far  as  I  recall,  no  slaveholder, 
even  in  the  darkest  days  of  slavery,  ventured  to 
give  his  occupation  any  such  humane  title;  but 
perhaps  we  moderns  show  our  superiority  over 
the  ancients  in  nothing  else  more  surely  than  in 
our  skill  in  hiding  our  corruption  beneath  an 
attractive  enamel,  and  in  throwing  a  veil  of 
sanctimony  over  our  vices. 

I  need  only  to  remark  further  that  this  hypo- 
critical cant  about  "bearing  the  white  man's 
burden"  was  accompanied  by  the  hardening  of 
the  white  man's  heart  toward  inferior  races. 
There  sprang  up  the  odious  doctrine  that  the 
superior  race  had  the  right  not  only  to  enslave  by 
industrial  exploitation  the  inferior  race,  but  even 
to  exterminate  it.  If  a  tribe  of  savages  dwelt  on 
land  beneath  which  the  geologists  knew  that  gold 
or  silver1  or  copper  existed,  it  was  perfectly  right 
for  the  white  men  who  had  bought  concessions 
to  that  land  to  drive  off  or  kill  the  tribe. 


JOHN  HAY'S  GOOD  DEED  211 

As  was  to  be  expected  the  Germans  reached 
this  doctrine  most  uncompromisingly,  because 
their  religious  and  ethical  preachers  existed  simply 
to  sanctify  the  practices  of  their  military  and 
commercial  masters.  No  doubt  the  other  dep- 
redators were  selfish  and  unsaintly,  but  the  Anglo- 
Saxons  among  them,  at  least,  had  learned  as 
colonizers  that  justice  pays  better  than  injustice, 
and  kindness  than  brutality. 

As  soon  as  the  foreign  powers  had  carved  up 
China — not  to  the  limit  of  their  greed,  for  that  was 
insatiable,  but  to  the  extent  that  they  then  deemed 
attainable  (for  in  this  matter  they  had  to  encounter 
not  only  the  flaccid  opposition  of  the  Chinese  but 
their  own  mutual  rivalries) — a  very  real  danger 
loomed  up.  If  each  nation  closed  its  port  to  all 
but  its  own  traders  the  others  would  be  seriously 
harmed.  Quarrels  would  inevitably  break  out 
and  the  Europeans  might  soon  be  fighting  among 
themselves — a  situation  that  would  encourage 
the  Chinese  Government  to  rise  up  and  expel 
them. 

At  this  point  John  Hay,  the  American  Secretary 
of  State,  enters  upon  the  scene.  He  received 
many  appeals  from  American  investors  in  China 
to  protect  their  interests.  The  following  extract 
from  a  letter  to  Mr.  Paul  Dana,  of  the  New 


212  VOLLEYS  FROM  A  NON-COMBATANT 

York  Sun,  states  his  position  early  in  the  trans- 
action : 

We  are,  of  course,  opposed  to  dismemberment  of  that 
empire,  and  we  do  not  think  that  the  public  opinion  of  the 
United  States  would  justify  this  government  in  taking 
part  in  the  great  game  of  spoliation  now  going  on.  At  the 
same  time  we  are  keenly  alive  to  the  importance  of  safe- 
guarding our  great  commercial  interests  in  that  empire 
and  our  representatives  there  have  orders  to  watch  closely 
everything  that  may  seem  calculated  to  injure  us,  and  to 
prevent  it  by  energetic  and  timely  representations.  We 
declined  to  support  the  demand  of  Italy  for  lodgment  there, 
and  at  the  same  time  we  were  not  prepared  to  assure  China 
that  we  would  join  her  in  repelling  that  demand  by  armed 
force.  We  do  not  consider  our  hands  tied  for  future  even- 
tualities; but  for  the  present  we  think  our  best  policy  is 
one  of  vigilant  protection  of  our  commercial  interests,  with- 
out formal  alliances  with  other  Powers  interested. 

In  his  instructions  to  Edwin  H.  Conger,  the 
American  Minister  to  China,  Secretary  Hay  laid 
down  this  policy,  and  through  our  Ambassador  to 
England,  Joseph  H.  Choate,  he  circulated  it  in 
London.  On  September  6,  1899,  Mr.  Choate 
handed  to  the  British  Foreign  Minister  the  famous 
American  circular  letter  on  the  "Open  Door." 
In  it  Mr.  Hay  said: 

The  President  understands  that  it  is  the  settled  policy  and 
purpose  of  Great  Britain  not  to  use  any  privilege  received 
from  China  to  exclude  any  commercial  rivals.  The  United 
States  Government  cannot  conceal  their  apprehensions  of 


JOHN  HAY'S  GOOD  DEED  213 

the  danger  of  complication  arising  between  the  Treaty 
Powers  which  may  imperil  the  rights  assured  to  the  United 
States  by  treaty.  The  United  States  hope  to  retain  China 
as  an  open  market  for  the  world's  commerce,  to  remove 
dangerous  sources  of  international  irritation,  and  thereby 
hasten  united  action  by  the  Powers  at  Peking  to  promote 
administrative  reforms,  so  greatly  needed,  for  strengthening 
the  Imperial  Government,  and  maintaining  the  integrity 
of  China,  in  which  the  United  States  believe  the  whole  west- 
ern world  is  alike  concerned. 

This  circular  concluded  by  urging  Great  Britain 
to  declare  its  adherence  to  these  general  principles; 
to  respect  the  existing  treaty  ports  and  vested 
interests;  to  allow  the  Chinese  tariff  to  be  main- 
tained and  be  collected  in  the  respective  spheres 
of  influence;  and  not  to  discriminate  against  other 
foreigners  in  port  and  railroad  rates. 

The  British  Government  having  acceded  to  this, 
Hay  sent  the  circular  letter  to  the  other  European 
Powers,  telling  them  that  if  he  did  not  receive  a 
negative  reply  immediately  he  should  assume  that 
they  accepted  his  suggestion  and  that  the  ac- 
ceptance would  be  "final  and  definitive." 

In  their  inmost  hearts  the  Great  Powers  did  not 
wish  to  renounce  their  special  privileges,  but  after 
learning  that  England  had  consented  they  could 
not  decently  refuse.  Favourable  answers  having 
been  received  from  all,  Secretary  Hay,  on  March 
20,  1900,  informed  the  American  diplomatic  offi- 


214   VOLLEYS  FROM  A  NON-COMBATANT 

cials  abroad  that  his  project  had  been  accepted. 
The  Open  Door  in  China  became  in  this  wise  a 
recognized  fact  in  international  policy.  Mr.  Wild- 
man,  United  States  consul  general  at  Hong-Kong, 
wrote  of  the  result  at  the  time: 

The  result  of  the  negotiations  may  be  considered  a  dip- 
lomatic triumph  for  America;  as  Great  Britain,  Russia, 
Germany,  and  France  have  been  at  vast  expense  of  blood 
and  treasure  in  opening  China's  door,  and  the  expense  of 
keeping  it  open  is  no  small  figure.  The  policing  of  the 
inland  rivers,  the  maintaining  of  consuls  wherever  there  is 
hope  of  trade,  the  exploring  of  possible  trade  routes,  and 
the  support  of  cruisers  to  guarantee  life  and  property  along 
the  coast,  represent  an  outlay  in  which  the  United  States 
does  not  share,  but  by  this  agreement  hopes  to  benefit. 

But  the  real  significance  of  John  Hay's  victory 
in  the  struggle  to  establish  the  Open-Door  policy 
was  much  more  than  even  diplomatic  or  com- 
mercial. It  reasserted  the  doctrine  of  the  Golden 
Rule,  which  had  had  scant  regard  paid  to  it  for 
many  generations.  Still  further,  the  Open-Door 
policy  hinged  on  preserving  the  integrity  of  China. 
It  admitted  that  weaker  and  so-called  inferior 
races  had  rights  that  the  strong  and  dominant 
races  were  bound  to  respect.  It  registered  a  re- 
versal of  fashion  in  diplomatic  standards  and  the 
supremacy  of  the  moral  law. 

Hardly  had  this  astonishing  consummation  been 


JOHN  HAY'S  GOOD  DEED  215 

reached  when  an  explosion  occurred  and  put  it  to 
a  tragic  test. 

German  insolence  was  not  the  only  provocation 
that  led  some  of  the  Chinese  to  rise  against  the 
Europeans,  but  it  was  very  enraging.  Late  in 
1897  two  German  missionaries  were  murdered  in 
the  province  of  Shan-Tung.  This  gave  the  trucu- 
lent young  Kaiser,  William  II,  the  pretext  he 
sought.  He  sent  a  German  fleet  to  demand 
redress,  and  the  Chinese  Government,  shorn  of 
power  to  defend  itself,  granted  to  the  Kaiser  a 
ninety-nine  years'  lease  of  the  very  desirable  port 
of  Kiao-Chau  and  of  much  of  the  surrounding 
country.  Thus  Germany  acquired  a  strong  foot- 
hold on  the  Chinese  coast  and  rapidly  pushed  her 
"sphere  of  influence"  over  the  entire  province  of 
Shan-Tung.  Thus,  also,  the  Chinese  learned  to 
know  the  meaning  of  what  the  Germans  called 
"a  punitive  expedition." 

During  the  two  years  following  China  herself 
became  more  and  more  enfeebled.  The  able  and 
wily  old  Dowager  Empress  found  herself  shoved 
into  the  background  by  the  young  Emperor, 
Kwang-su,  who  had  been  brought  up  under 
European  influences  and  was  known  as  a  reformer. 
His  purpose  seemed  to  be  to  transform  China  as 
fast  as  possible  into  an  imitation  of  a  European 


2i6  VOLLEYS  FROM  A  NON-COMBATANT 

country;  he  welcomed  foreigners  to  his  council, 
approved  of  concessions,  and  so  alarmed  the  con- 
servative Chinese  that  it  was  said  they  feared 
he  would  force  them  to  take  daily  baths  and  to 
give  up  eating  with  chopsticks. 

To  prevent  this  process  of  Europeanization, 
which  threatened  the  integrity  of  the  Chinese 
Empire,  there  arose  several  patriotic  secret  societies. 
The  principal  was  I-ho-chuan,  which  means :  "The 
Fists  of  Righteous  Harmony,"  or  fists  clenched  in 
righteous  harmony  to  drive  out  the  foreigners. 
Boxers  fight  with  clenched  fists,  and  so  these  con- 
spirators were  called  Boxers  by  the  Europeans. 
Their  methods  were  often  cruel;  their  spirit  was 
implacable;  but  they  were  as  truly  patriots  as  were 
the  Yankees  who,  under  Samuel  Adams,  John 
Hancock,  and  their  accomplices,  conspired  to  rescue 
the  American  Colonies  from  what  they  regarded 
as  intolerable  oppression. 

The  Boxers  were  comparatively  few  in  number, 
but  as  their  work  of  extermination  began  with 
foreign  missionaries  it  was  well  advertised,  and  it 
naturally  exasperated  the  European  Powers,  who 
were  disposed  to  make  it  an  excuse  for  further 
exactions  and  for  strengthening  their  hold  on 
the  concessions  they  had  already  acquired.  No 
wonder  that  the  Dowager  Empress,  in  a  secret 


JOHN  HAY'S  GOOD  DEED  217 

edict    to   her  viceroys  on  November  21,    1899, 
said: 

The  various  Powers  cast  upon  us  looks  of  tigerlike  voracity, 
hustling  each  other  in  their  endeavours  to  be  the  first  to 
seize  upon  our  innermost  territories.  They  think  that  China, 
having  neither  money  nor  troops,  would  never  venture  to 
go  to  war  with  them.  They  fail  to  understand  that  there 
are  certain  things  that  this  empire  can  never  consent  to,  and 
that  if  hardly  pressed  upon  we  have  no  alternative  but  to 
rely  upon  the  justice  of  our  cause,  the  knowledge  of  which  in 
our  breasts  strengthens  our  resolves  and  steels  us  to  present 
a  united  front  against  our  aggressors. 

During  that  winter  and  spring  the  Boxers  con- 
tinued their  attacks  and  outrages  on  the  foreigners; 
the  Empress  seemed  secretly  to  sympathize  with 
them;  and  the  foreign  ministers  kept  up  a  rain  of 
protests,  in  spite  of  which  the  outrages  increased. 

Religion  and  superstition  added  fuel  to  the  fires 
of  Boxer  patriotism.  A  drought  fell  on  the  country 
during  the  late  spring  and  easily  convinced  the 
peasants  that  it  signified  the  displeasure  of  the  gods. 
The  following  "Sacred  edict,  issued  by  the  Lord 
of  wealth  and  happiness,"  shows  how  the  people 
felt: 

The  Catholic  and  Protestant  religions,  being  insolent  to 
the  gods  and  destructive  of  holy  things,  rendering  no  obedi- 
ence to  Buddhism  and  enraging  both  heaven  and  earth,  the 
rain-clouds  no  longer  visit  us,  but  8,000,000  Spirit  Soldiers 
will  descend  from  heaven  and  sweep  the  Empire  clean  of  all 


2i8  VOLLEYS  FROM  A  NON-COMBATANT 

foreigners.  Then  will  the  gentle  showers  once  more  water  our 
lands;  and,  when  the  tread  of  soldiers  and  the  clash  of  steel 
are  heard,  threatening  woes  to  our  people,  then  the  Buddha's 
Patriotic  League  of  Boxers  will  protect  the  Empire  and  bring 
peace  to  all. 

Hasten,  then,  to  spread  this  doctrine  far  and  wide;  for 
if  you  gain  one  adherent  to  the  faith,  your  own  person  will 
be  absolved  from  all  future  misfortunes;  if  you  gain  five 
adherents  to  the  faith,  your  whole  family  will  be  absolved 
from  all  evils;  if  you  gain  ten  adherents  to  the  faith,  your 
whole  village  will  be  absolved  from  all  calamities.  Those 
who  gain  no  adherents  to  the  cause  shall  be  decapitated; 
for,  until  all  foreigners  have  been  exterminated,  the  rain  can 
never  visit  us. 

The  bands  of  Boxers  drew  nearer  and  nearer  to 
Peking,  the  capital  city.  The  foreign  ministers 
requested  the  Chinese  Government  to  allow  the 
marines  from  their  respective  warships  to  be  sent 
up  to  guard  them,  but  the  negotiations  dragged  on. 
Suddenly,  on  May  27,  1900,  the  Boxers  tore  up 
the  railway  to  Pao-ting  Fu,  burned  the  stations, 
and  killed  the  employees.  Without  delay  the 
ministers  summoned  the  marines;  none  too  soon, 
for  the  next  day  the  other  railroad  line  was  de- 
stroyed, communication  with  Tientsin  and  the  ports 
was  cut  and  the  siege  began.  All  the  foreigners 
and  some,  if  not  all,  of  the  Chinese  converts  took 
refuge  in  the  compound  of  the  British  Legation. 
The  marines  numbered  about  450,  and  a  hundred 
more  men  among  the  legationers  completed  the 


JOHN  HAY'S  GOOD  DEED  219 

force  that  defended  the  foreigners  during  nearly 
ten  weeks.  The  Boxers  attacked  them  in  vain 
during  the  first  ten  days;  after  that  the  army  of 
the  Chinese  Government  tried  to  overcome  them. 
There  were  many  women  and  children  among  the 
refugees  in  the  British  Legation,  ministers  of  eleven 
nations,  persons  of  fourteen  nationalities — in  all 
about  a  thousand  foreigners,  besides  the  two  thou- 
sand native  Christians. 

To  the  outside  world  nothing  was  more  astonish- 
ing than  the  complete  silence  that  surrounded  the 
besieged  legationers.  No  message  was  allowed  to 
pass  in  to  them;  not  a  word  came  out  from  them, 
It  was  as  if  the  earth  had  opened  and  swallowed 
them  up  and  closed  over  them.  Rescuing  expedi- 
tions from  Tientsin  and  the  coast  went  in  vain  to 
relieve  them.  Week  followed  week  without  tid- 
ings; the  suspense  weighed  like  a  nightmare  on  the 
world,  and  the  world  gradually  believed  that  the 
legationers  had  all  been  massacred. 

Meanwhile  they  were  defending  themselves  with 
the  utmost  valour.  The  women,  young  and  old, 
and  the  non-combatants  kept  up  their  spirits  with- 
out flinching,  and  even  the  ominous  daily  decrease 
of  provisions,  which  meant  the  sure  approach  of 
starvation,  did  not  dismay  them.  Our  minister, 
General  Conger,  was  an  admirable  leader;  so  were 


220  VOLLEYS  FROM  A  NON-COMBATANT 

Sir  Claude  Macdonald,  the  British  Minister;  Sir 
Robert  Hart,  the  head  of  the  Chinese  Customs 
service;  and  others.  A  good  many  died,  and  of 
course  the  little  children  suffered  most  of  all.  But 
the  resolution  of  the  legationers  failed  not. 

On  June  fifteenth,  Secretary  Hay,  having  a  pre- 
sentiment that  great  danger  was  impending,  cabled 
Minister  Conger: 

Do  you  need  more  force?  Communicate  with  the  admiral 
and  report. 

To  this  no  answer  came.  Days  passed,  and  still 
no  answer.  Other  nations  tried  to  reach  their  min- 
isters by  telegraph,  but  their  messages  were  lost 
in  impenetrable  silence,  like  pebbles  dropped  into 
the  fathomless  ocean.  Not  to  be  baffled  Mr.  Hay 
tried  another  means:  He  requested  Li  Hung 
Chang,  the  Chinese  viceroy,  of  almost  absolute 
power,  to  forward  the  following  message  through 
the  Boxer  lines  to  Conger  in  the  legations: 

July  ii.     Communicate  tidings  bearer. 

I  do  not  know  whether  Li  Hung  Chang  made  an 
effort  to  send  this  message  through  or  not. 

By  this  time  the  Chinese  Government  itself,  not 
merely  the  Boxers,  was  conducting  the  siege  of  the 
legations;  so  that  there  is  no  doubt  that  if  he  had 


JOHN  HAY'S  GOOD  DEED  221 

wished  to  do  so  the  mighty  viceroy  could  have 
communicated  with  Conger;  but  no  reply  came, 
and  the  world  very  generally  accepted  the  rumour 
that  all  the  persons  in  the  legations  had  been  mas- 
sacred. Secretary  Hay  alone  remained  firm  in  his 
belief  that  they  were  still  alive. 

At  last,  on  July  twentieth,  he  received  this  des- 
patch dated  July  sixteenth: 

For  one  month  we  have  been  besieged  in  British  Legation 
with  shot  and  shell  by  Chinese  troops.  Quick  relief  only  can 
prevent  general  massacre. 

This  despatch  came  in  the  cipher  of  the  State 
Department.  Still  many  persons  doubted  its 
genuineness,  arguing  that  if  the  Chinese  had  cap- 
tured the  legations  they  might  have  found  the 
American  code  book  and  used  it.  To  make  sure, 
Secretary  Hay  resorted  to  a  clever  device.  On 
July  twenty-first  he  cabled : 

Dispatch  received.  Authenticity  doubted.  Answer  this, 
giving  your  sister's  name.  Report  attitude  and  position  of 
Chinese  Government. 

The  reply  with  the  name  of  General  Conger's 
sister  came  promptly,  and  proved  that  the  lega- 
tioners  were  still  alive. 

Quick  relief  was  now  imperative.  And  how 
quick  able  men  can  be  soon  appeared.  Mr.  Hay, 


222  VOLLEYS  FROM  A  NON-COMBATANT 

on  receiving  Conger's  message,  immediately  con- 
ferred with  Elihu  Root,  the  Secretary  of  War, 
whose  office  was  in  the  other  end  of  the  State  De- 
partment Building.  Mr.  Root  summoned  General 
Chaffee.  They  decided  on  the  general  character  of 
the  expedition;  they  got  the  approval  of  the  Presi- 
dent, Mr.  McKinley.  The  next  morning  General 
Chaffee  was  flying  across  the  country  in  the  fastest 
express  to  San  Francisco.  When  he  arrived  there 
a  ship  was  ready  to  take  him  across  the  Pacific. 
He  reached  China  in  time  to  lead  the  expeditionary 
force  into  Peking. 

The  first  reason  for  his  haste  was  to  deliver  the 
legationers  from  starvation  or  slaughter.  The 
next  reason  was  to  outspeed  the  expeditionary 
force  that  the  German  Emperor  was  sending  out 
under  Count  Waldersee,  who,  if  he  arrived  first  on 
the  ground,  would  take  command  of  the  forces  and 
have  given  to  the  campaign  an  undesirable  German 
twist. 

While  General  Chaffee  was  racing  to  the  rescue 
Secretary  tlay  did  not  slacken  his  diplomatic  efforts. 
He  urged  Mr.  Wu,  the  Chinese  Minister  at  Wash- 
ington, to  persuade  Viceroy  Li  Hung  Chang  that  the 
ministers  should  be  permitted  to  communicate  freely 
with  their  governments;  but  for  more  than  three 
weeks  the  wily  Oriental  evaded  coming  to  a  decision. 


JOHN  HAY'S  GOOD  DEED  223 

On  August  fourteenth  Mr.  Hay  received  the  fol- 
lowing cablegram  from  General  Conger: 

Do  not  put  trust  in  Li  Hung  Chang.  He  is  an  unscrupu- 
lous tool  of  the  cruel  Dowager.  There  can  be  no  adequate 
negotiation  with  Peking  until  the  high  authors  of  the  great 
crime  have  surrendered.  Imperial  troops  firing  on  us  daily. 
Our  losses  60  killed,  120  wounded.  We  have  reached  half 
rations,  horse  flesh.  Have  food  only  for  a  fortnight.  Six 
children  have  died.  Many  others  sick. 

That  same  day  the  relief  expedition  arrived  and 
saved  the  legationers. 

The  Boxer  Rising  and  the  siege  of  the  legations  in- 
terrupted and  put  in  great  jeopardy  the  realization 
of  Secretary  Hay's  Open-Door  policy.  Some  of 
the  Powers,  which  had  acceded  reluctantly,  were 
glad  of  an  excuse  to  withdraw.  Even  those  that 
had  been  favourable  now  felt  that  China  had  been 
both  slippery  and  ungrateful  in  return  for  their 
benevolence. 

Russia  and  Germany  were  the  most  intractable. 
Russia  had  counted  on  absorbing  Manchuria. 
Germany,  anxious  lest  she  should  not  secure  booty 
equal  to  her  imperial  pretensions  and  voracity,  was 
now  spurred  on  by  a  special  grievance.  During 
the  upheaval  her  minister,  Von  Ketteler,  was  killed 
by  a  Chinese  assassin.  In  accordance  with  the 
civilized  Prussian  ideas,  therefore,  his  death  must 


224  VOLLEYS  FROM  A  NON-COMBATANT 

be  avenged  by  slaying  a  large  number  of  Chinese, 
whether  they  were  guilty  or  innocent. 

In  bidding  his  troops  farewell  as  they  sailed 
under  Waldersee  for  China  the  Kaiser  gave  them 
instructions  that  surprised  the  world  then,  but 
are  now  seen  to  be  wholly  in  keeping  with  his  Hun- 
nish  nature.  He  told  his  soldiery  to  behave  like 
Huns,  so  that  no  Chinese  would  dare  to  look  into 
the  face  of  a  German  for  a  thousand  years.  They 
hardly  needed  this  exhortation,  for  they  took  nat- 
urally to  murder  and  outrage,  to  unspeakable 
cruelty  toward  women  and  little  children,  to  pillage 
and  wanton  destruction.  Waldersee's  expedition 
seems  in  the  retrospect  to  have  been  a  rehearsal 
of  the  barbaric  ferocity  that  the  Germans  practised 
on  the  Belgians  and  the  French  in  August,  1914. 

The  situation  was  complicated  by  the  fact  that 
though  the  siege  of  the  legations  had  been  begun 
by  the  Boxers  the  Chinese  Government  itself  was 
responsible  for  continuing  it  during  two  months. 
Indeed  the  Empress  Dowager  seems  secretly  to 
have  befriended  the  Boxers  from  the  start  and,  as 
their  activity  spread,  to  have  instigated  them  to 
further  violence.  Her  instigation  may  often  have 
taken  the  form  of  doing  nothing  to  arrest  or  to 
prevent  them. 

The  attempted  extermination  of  foreigners  hav- 


JOHN  HAY'S  GOOD  DEED  225 

ing  now  failed,  the  Chinese  Government  tried  to 
throw  all  the  odium  of  it  on  the  Boxers.  American 
diplomacy  as  directed  by  Secretary  Hay  and  Presi- 
dent McKinley  had  now  two  objects:  It  aimed 
at  preventing  the  permanent  military  occupation 
of  various  parts  of  China  by  the  armies  of  the 
European  Relief  Expedition,  and  at  restoring  in  full 
vigour  the  rule  of  the  Open  Door.  Peace  and 
orderly  government  were,  of  course,  presupposed. 
As  officially  expressed  by  acting  Secretary  of  State 
Adee,  we  wished  to  "preserve  Chinese  territorial 
and  administrative  entity,  protect  all  rights  guar- 
anteed by  treaty  and  international  law  to  friendly 
Powers,  and  safeguard  for  the  world  the  principle 
of  equal  and  impartial  trade  with  all  parts  of  the 
Chinese  Empire."  [August  29, 1900.] 

Secretary  Hay  sent  W.  W.  Rockhill,  one  of  the 
ablest  of  our  diplomats,  to  conduct  negotiations, 
and  Earl  Li  Hung  Chang  had  charge  of  the  Chinese 
interests.  To  maintain  anything  like  harmony 
among  the  various  foreign  Powers  was  a  hard  task, 
which  would  not  have  been  achieved  if  Mr.  Hay 
had  not  resolutely  insisted  on  it. 

Many  months  of  discussion  followed.  Among 
the  foreigners  two  opposing  views  clashed  with 
each  other.  One  party,  which  the  Germans  led, 
favoured  inflicting  upon  the  Chinese  a  paralyzing 


226  VOLLEYS  FROM  A  NON-COMBATANT 

punishment;  and  under  the  guise  of  exacting  stern 
retribution  they  would  have  robbed  China  of  more 
territory  and  concessions.  The  other  party,  of 
which  Hay  was  the  spokesman  for  the  United 
States,  advocated  the  punishment  of  the  instigators 
of  the  attacks  on  foreigners  and  on  the  legations, 
and  of  the  known  perpetrators  of  crimes  and 
cruelty;  but  it  fought  to  maintain  the  policy  of  the 
Open  Door  and  to  enable  China  to  recover  her 
independence  and  her  status  as  an  administrative 
entity. 

Mr.  Rockhill  carried  out  Secretary  Hay's  instruc- 
tions with  so  much  discretion  and  urbanity  that 
in  the  first  weeks  of  the  conference  he  seemed 
likely  to  secure  the  adoption  of  the  American  view 
with  but  little  dissent;  then,  however,  came  Walder- 
see  and  the  German  soldiers,  more  than  ready 
to  obey  the  Kaiser's  parting  command  to  them 
to  behave  like  Huns,  and  bringing  with  them  the 
feeling — which  had  been  popular  in  Europe  when 
they  embarked — that  only  by  taking  a  terrible 
vengeance  on  the  Chinese  could  the  horrors  that 
foreigners  had  suffered  at  their  hands  be  atoned 
for. 

The  Germans'  bloody  orgies  were  not  only 
frightful  to  their  victims,  but  also  they  greatly 
interfered  with  the  smooth  course  of  negotiations. 


JOHN  HAY'S  GOOD  DEED  227 

Since  Hay  wished  to  save  China  he  strove  from 
the  first  to  persuade  the  great  viceroys  that  they 
should  regard  the  foreign  Powers  as  being  friendly 
to  her,  even  though  he  and  the  Europeans  must 
insist  on  indemnity  and  punishment.  Hay  had 
brought  them  to  accept  this  point  of  view  when 
the  Germans  broke  loose  with  their  atrocities, 
and  the  Chinese,  not  being  Germans  or  under- 
standing the  barbaric  psychology  of  the  Germans, 
took  this  as  a  very  strange  way  of  showing  friendli- 
ness. 

I  cannot  do  better  than  to  quote  from  a  letter 
written  at  that  time,  in  order  to  show  how  great 
a  menace  Waldersee  and  his  Huns  were  to  the 
successful  conclusion  of  the  negotiations. 

The  extract  is  from  one  of  Mr.  Hay's  own 
letters,  dated  October  16,  1900.  He  wrote: 

Everything  appeared  to  be  going  well  until  this  promenade 
of  Waldersee's  to  Tao  Ping,  which  I  fear  will  have  very  un- 
favourable results  upon  the  rest  of  China.  The  great  viceroys, 
to  secure  whose  assistance  was  our  first  effort  and  our  success, 
have  been  standing  by  us  splendidly  for  the  past  four  months. 
How  much  longer  they  can  hold  their  turbulent  populations 
quiet  in  the  face  of  constant  incitements  to  disturbance 
which  Germany  and  Russia  are  giving  is  hard  to  conjec- 
ture. .  .  . 

The  success  we  had  in  stopping  that  first  preposterous  Ger- 
man movement  when  the  whole  world  seemed  likely  to  join 
in  it,  when  the  entire  press  of  the  Continent  and  a  great 


228  VOLLEYS  FROM  A  NON-COMBATANT 

many  on  this  side  were  in  favour  of  it,  will  always  be  a  source 
of  gratification.  .  .  .  The  moment  we  acted  the  rest  of 
the  world  paused,  and  finally  came  over  to  our  ground;  and 
the  German  Government,  which  is  generally  brutal  but  sel- 
dom silly,  recovered  its  senses,  climbed  down  off  its  perch, 
and  presented  another  proposition,  which  was  exactly  in 
line  with  our  position. 

Even  as  Hay  was  writing  this  letter,  Lord 
Salisbury,  the  British  Premier,  and  the  German 
Ambassador  to  England  were  signing  in  London 
an  agreement  in  which  England  and  Germany 
agreed  to  uphold  the  Open-Door  policy  in  China 
and  pledged  themselves  not  to  use  the  existing 
abnormal  complications  as  a  pretext  for  obtaining 
for  themselves  any  territorial  advantages  in  the 
Chinese  dominions. 

This  agreement  puzzled  Hay,  as  well  it  might. 
In  1918  there  is  a  touch  of  humour  in  the  fact  that 
Germany  chose  England,  of  all  countries,  to  be 
her  partner.  Hay  cabled  to  the  American  diplo- 
mats in  all  the  capitals  of  Europe  to  pry  open  this 
secret  if  they  could,  but  they  all  were  baffled.  So 
far  as  I  know  neither  country  has  made  an  official 
statement  as  to  why  they  drew  together;  it  has 
been  whispered,  however,  that  their  mutual  pur- 
pose was  to  check  Russian  aggression  in  Man- 
churia, and  that  Germany,  fearing  that  the  English 
intended  to  secure  a  monopoly  of  the  Yang-tse 


JOHN  HAY'S  GOOD  DEED  229 

Valley  trade,  thought  the  best  way  to  prevent 
this  was  to  bind  England  by  secret  agreement. 

One  more  quotation  from  Mr.  Hay's  private 
correspondence  must  complete  my  outline  of  his 
personal  attitude  toward  the  Chinese  entangle- 
ment during  the  autumn  of  1900.  This  final 
extract  from  a  letter  from  Hay  to  Henry  Adams, 
his  most  intimate  friend,  contains  some  phrases 
not  likely  to  be  forgotten : 

What  a  business  this  has  been  in  China!  So  far  we  have 
got  on  by  being  honest  and  naif — I  do  not  clearly  see  where 
we  are  to  come  the  delayed  cropper.  But  it  will  come.  At 
least  we  are  spared  the  infamy  of  an  alliance  with  Germany. 
I  would  rather,  I  think,  be  the  dupe  of  China  than  the  chum 
of  the  Kaiser.  Have  you  noticed  how  the  world  will  take 
anything  nowadays  from  a  German?  Biilow  said  yesterday 
in  substance :  "  We  h ave  demanded  of  China  everything  we  can 
think  of.  If  we  think  of  anything  else  we  will  demand  that, 
and  be  d d  to  you" — and  not  a  man  in  the  world  kicks. 

My  heart  is  heavy  about  John  Bull.  Do  you  twig  his 
attitude  to  Germany?  When  the  Anglo-German  pact  came 
out  I  took  a  day  or  two  to  find  out  what  it  meant.  I  soon 
learned  from  Berlin  that  it  meant  a  horrible  practical  joke 
on  England.  From  London  I  found  out  what  I  had  sus- 
pected, but  what  it  astounded  me,  after  all,  to  be  assured  of: 
That  they  did  not  know!  Germany  proposed  it,  they  saw 
no  harm  in  it,  and  signed.  When  Japan  joined  the  pact  I 
asked  them  why.  They  said:  "We  don't  know,  only  if  there 
is  any  fun  going  on  we  want  to  be  in."  Cassini  [Russian 
Ambassador  at  Washington]  is  furious — which  may  be  be- 
cause he  has  not  been  let  into  the  joke.  [November  21, 
1900.] 


230  VOLLEYS  FROM  A  NON-COMBATANT 

What  a  world  of  meaning  Hay  packs  into  the 
two  sentences,  "At  least  we  are  spared  the  infamy 
of  an  alliance  with  Germany.  I  would  rather,  I 
think,  be  the  dupe  of  China  than  the  chum  of  the 
Kaiser/'  To  appreciate  its  full  force  you  must 
remember  that  China  was  then  ruled  by  the 
Dowager  Empress,  the  wiliest  and  most  unscrupu- 
lous monarch  in  the  world,  and  that  her  chief 
minister  was  the  Viceroy  Li  Hung  Chang,  who  in 
cunning  and  shamelessness  could  have  given  points 
even  to  Bismarck.  I  have  told  elsewhere  how 
Hay  was  one  of  the  first  to  suspect  German  in- 
trigues in  the  United  States,  and  how  he  repelled 
the  Kaiser's  reptilian  efforts  to  circumvent  the 
Monroe  Doctrine.  Here  we  see  that  as  early  as 
the  year  1900  he  penetrated  the  Kaiser's  nature 
as  well  as  his  projects.  To  have  understood  Ger- 
man hypocrisy  at  a  time  when  all  the  world  was 
lauding  Germany — and  especially  the  United 
States,  which  through  our  Germanized  professors 
was  spreading  the  poison  of  German  Kultur— 
will  add  lustre  to  John  Hay's  fame  as  the  years 
go  on. 

I  need  not  give  in  detail  the  course  of  the  negotia- 
tions. Among  so  many  interested  parties,  holding 
divergent  views,  there  was  inevitably  much  con- 
tention, and  the  Chinese  under  the  guidance  of  the 


JOHN  HAY'S  GOOD  DEED  231 

cunning  Li  Hung  Chang  seized  every  means  they 
could  to  lessen  their  penalties.  At  last,  on  Sep- 
tember 7,  1901,  a  protocol  was  signed,  and  ten 
days  later  the  foreign  garrisons  withdrew  from 
Peking.  China  had  to  pay  an  indemnity  of  about 
$333,000,000  to  the  Powers  in  compensation  for 
the  loss  of  their  nationals,  property,  and  interrup- 
tion of  trade.  Of  this  amount  the  United  States 
received  nearly  $25,000,000. 

Owing  to  the  failure  of  Russia  to  keep  her 
promise  to  evacuate  Manchuria  irritation  con- 
tinued in  China  after  the  other  Powers  had  accepted 
the  settlement  and  gone  home.  Always  anxious 
lest  some  infringement  of  the  Open-Door  policy 
might  lead  to  its  destruction,  Secretary  Hay 
watched  the  Russian  intrigues  jealously.  For  a 
long  time  he  could  not  unmask  them.  He  had  a 
fixed  distrust  of  Russian  diplomacy,  and  especially 
of  Muravieff,  who  was  then  in  the  ascendant  at 
St.  Petersburg.  Russian  diplomacy,  Hay  said, 
always  had  a  false  bottom.  Not  until  October  8, 
1903,  was  a  treaty  signed  in  which  Russia  agreed 
to  the  creation  of  Mukden  and  Antung  as  treaty 
ports. 

Here  ended  Mr.  Hay's  task  for  a  while.  No 
doubt,  as  has  been  remarked,  if  the  United  States 
had  possessed  a  strong  navy  he  would  have  been 


23  2  VOLLEYS  FROM  A  NON-COMBATANT 

able  to  finish  the  business  more  rapidly  and  much 
more  to  the  satisfaction  of  China  and  of  justice. 

Japan,  however,  had  a  navy  and  an  army,  too, 
and  she  could  not  tolerate  the  presence  of  Russia 
as  an  overlord  in  Manchuria,  the  province  that 
she  herself  had  conquered  in  1894  and  still  cov- 
eted. She  now  sought  a  reckoning  with  Russia, 
and  four  months  later  she  and  Russia  were  at  war. 

During  the  Russo-Japanese  War,  which  filled 
the  last  year  of  John  Hay's  life,  he  kept  strictly 
neutral  between  the  two  belligerents  and  followed 
every  move  that  might  injure  China.  The  Euro- 
pean Powers  generally  favoured  Russia,  if  for  no 
better  reason  than  that  the  Russians  were  white 
men  while  the  Japanese  were  yellow.  American 
neutrality  unquestionably  strengthened  our  posi- 
tion with  the  other  Powers  and  checked  any 
desire  any  of  them  may  have  felt  to  meddle  in  the 
war.  At  the  very  outset  the  German  Kaiser 
suggested  "that  we  take  the  initiative  in  calling 
upon  the  Powers  to  use  good  offices  to  induce 
Russia  and  Japan  to  respect  the  neutrality  of 
China  outside  the  sphere  of  military  operations." 
Mr.  Hay,  with  President  Roosevelt's  approval, 
issued  such  a  circular,  substituting  for  the 
Kaiser's  phrase  "the  administrative  entity  of 
China."  Within  ten  days  the  Powers  chiefly  in- 


JOHN  HAY'S  GOOD  DEED  233 

terested   agreed   in   substance  to  the    American 
circular. 

By  the  end  of  the  year  the  European  Powers, 
alarmed  by  the  unexpected  exhaustion  of  Russia, 
which  was  approaching  collapse,  were  eager  to 
bring  about  a  peace,  but  neither  Japan  nor  Russia 
was  ready.  On  January  5,  1905,  Hay  writes  in 
his  diary: 

Sternburg  [German  Ambassador  at  Washington]  wires 
the  President  that  he  communicated  his  views  to  the  Emperor 
who  requested  him  to  telegraph  the  President: 

He  is  highly  gratified  to  hear  that  you  firmly  adhere  to 
the  Open  Door  and  uphold  the  actual  integrity  of  China, 
which  the  Emperor  believes  at  present  to  be  gravely  men- 
aced. Close  observation  of  events  has  firmly  convinced 
him  that  a  powerful  coalition,  headed  by  France,  is  under 
formation,  directed  against  the  integrity  of  China  and  the 
Open  Door.  The  aim  of  this  coalition  is  to  convince  the 
belligerents  that  peace  without  compensation  to  the 
neutral  Powers  is  impossible.  The  formation  of  this 
coalition,  the  Emperor  firmly  believes,  can  be  frustrated 
by  the  following  move:  You  should  ask  all  Powers 
having  interest  in  the  Far  East,  including  the  minor  ones, 
whether  they  are  prepared  to  give  a  pledge  not  to  demand 
any  compensation  for  themselves  in  any  shape,  of  territory, 
or  other  compensation,  in  China  or  elsewhere,  for  any 
service  rendered  to  the  belligerents  in  the  making  of  peace 
or  for  any  other  reason.  Such  a  request  would  force  the 
Powers  to  show  their  hands,  and  any  latent  designs  di- 
rected against  the  Open  Door  or  integrity  of  China  would 
immediately  become  apparent.  Without  this  pledge  the 
belligerents  would  find  it  impossible  to  obtain  advantages 
without  simultaneously  provoking  selfish  aims  of  the  neu- 


234  VOLLEYS  FROM  A  NON-COMBATANT 

tral  brokers.  In  the  opinion  of  the  Emperor,  a  grant  of  a 
certain  portion  of  territory  to  both  belligerents  eventually 
in  the  north  of  China  is  inevitable.  The  Open  Door  within 
this  territory  might  be  maintained  by  treaty.  Germany, 
of  course,  would  be  then  first  to  pledge  herself  to  this 
policy  of  disinterestedness. 

Sternburg  then  says  he  is  also  impressed  with  the  danger 
of  such  demands  of  neutrals — asks  a  reply. 

President  Roosevelt  agreed  with  Mr.  Hay  "that 
it  would  be  best  to  take  advantage  of  the  Kaiser's 
proposition:  ist,  to  nail  the  matter  with  him  and, 
2d,  to  ascertain  the  views  of  the  other  Powers." 

Accordingly  the  Secretary  sent  off  the  "Self- 
denying  Circular."  On  January  eighteenth  Eng- 
land and  Italy  acceded;  on  the  nineteenth  France 
joined;  and  on  the  twentieth  Germany  expressed 
official  gratification  that  the  United  States  "have 
resolved  to  take  steps  to  maintain  the  integrity 
of  China  and  the  Open  Door,  and  at  our  promise 
not  to  make  territorial  acquisition — which  corre- 
sponds entirely  to  attitude  of  German  Emperor." 

Hay  adds  in  his  diary: 

What  the  whole  performance  meant  to  the  Kaiser  it  is 
difficult  to  see.  But  there  is  no  possible  doubt  that  we  have 
scored  for  China. 

Subsequently  Hay  feared  that  the  Kaiser 

"still  insists  upon  the  fact  of  the  combination  of  France,  Eng- 
land, and  Russia  to  partition  China.     He  says  he  was  asked 


JOHN  HAY'S  GOOD  DEED  235 

to  join,  but  indignantly  refused,  and  that  our  circular  of 
January  thirteenth  gave  the  scheme  the  coup  de  grace" 

This  was  indeed,  as  Hay  remarked,  a  strange 
incident  which  makes  one  wonder.  Perhaps  the 
Kaiser  suspected  that  the  three  Powers  were  going 
to  cut  up  China  without  giving  him  a  share. 
Perhaps  he  wished  to  snub  England  and  France, 
with  whom  he  was  not  then  on  good  terms. 
Perhaps  he  was  simply  carrying  out  the  role  of 
startler,  which  he  had  adopted  and  was  playing 
to  his  own  amusement  at  that  time.  Whatever 
his  motive,  it  fell  in  with  Hay's  rooted  policy  of 
safeguarding  China. 

This  was  the  last  time  that  Hay  struck  a  blow 
in  her  behalf.  For  more  than  a  year  his  health 
had  been  failing;  now  it  broke  down  and  his  doctors 
ordered  him  to  Europe  in  the  hope  that  rest  would 
help  him — but  in  vain;  he  came  home  in  June,  and 
died  on  July  I,  1905. 

Some  critics  will  now  tell  you  that  his  greatest 
achievement  in  statesmanship — the  saving  of  China 
and  the  policy  of  the  Open  Door — has  already 
become  dimmed.  China  exists,  to  be  sure,  as  an 
"administrative  entity,"  but  in  so  precarious  a 
state  that  if  the  European  Powers  had  not  during 
the  past  ten  years  turned  their  attention  with 
feverish  stimulation  to  European  quarrels  they 


236  VOLLEYS  FROM  A  NON-COMBATANT 

might  have  dismembered  China  in  spite  of  John 
Hay's  example.  The  doctrine  of  the  Open  Door 
also  still  survives  after  a  fashion,  but  it  no  longer 
seems  to  be  accepted  as  a  cardinal  point  in  inter- 
national law  that  concerns  China. 

They  who  criticize  thus,  however,  and  think 
that  this  is  all,  leave  out  of  the  account  the  most 
precious  factor — the  ideal.  For,  in  his  dealings 
with  China,  John  Hay,  for  the  first  time  in  modern 
statesmanship,  applied  on  a  large  scale  the  Golden 
Rule.  Here  was  a  nation  of  four  hundred  million 
people  round  whom  were  gathered  the  representa- 
tives of  the  European  nations  like  so  many  Shy- 
locks,  each  with  his  long-bladed  keen  knife,  intent 
on  cutting  the  largest  slice  he  could  from  the 
stricken  and  apparently  dying  giant;  and  the 
American  spokesman  among  them  persuaded  them 
to  stay  their  hands,  to  allow  China  to  live  and, 
still  more,  to  live  under  such  conditions  that  she 
might  regain  strength  to  control  herself.  The  mem- 
ory of  this  act  shall  not  pass  away,  and  though 
statesmen  may  often  fall  below  that  standard  the 
American  ideal  as  realized  by  Hay  will  judge  them 
and  will  incite  them  to  imitation. 

The  gratitude  of  the  Chinese,  which  endures 
after  twenty  years,  completes  a  noble  record. 
They  still  point  to  that  example  of  American 


JOHN  HAY'S  GOOD  DEED  237 

statecraft  as  a  model  of  generosity,  disinterested- 
ness, and  justice,  and  only  recently  they  have 
erected  a  monument  to  John  Hay  as  a  thank  offer- 
ing. That  this  country  returned  more  than  half 
of  the  indemnity,  on  finding  it  was  too  large, 
deserves  also  to  be  remembered. 

Let  us  Americans  hope  that  in  the  great  diplo- 
matic settlement  by  which  at  the  end  of  this  war 
the  numberless  tangled  and  ugly  racial  and  political 
quarrels  are  to  be  adjusted,  the  spokesmen  of  the 
United  States  may  worthily  imitate  their  fore- 
runner, John  Hay.  Only  by  so  doing  can  they 
establish  the  Open  Door  through  which  Peace 
shall  enter  to  bless  and  rule  the  world. 


IX 

CAMPAIGNING  FOR  DUPES:    ARE  YOU  ONE?1 

WHEN  a  swindler  goes  about  his  work,  he 
takes  it  for  granted  that  there  is  a  certain 
number  of  persons  whom  he  can  dupe.  The 
number  may  be  larger  or  smaller,  but  he  is  certain 
that  it  exists,  and  he  sets  his  traps  to  catch  as 
many  victims  as  he  can.  His  trap  may  be  simply 
a  gold  brick,  or  a  roll  of  counterfeit  banknotes, 
if  he  preys  on  the  most  gullible;  or  it  may  be  a 
seductive  broker's  circular,  if  he  is  gunning  for 
persons  who  have  more  dollars  than  wits;  or  it 
may  be  the  prospectus  of  a  quack  medicine.  It 
has  remained  for  our  time  to  witness  the  greatest 
swindle  of  all  —  that  of  the  cunning  rulers  of  a 
vast  empire  who,  in  their  desperation,  hope  to  win 
by  deceit  the  victory  which  they  could  not  win  by 
war. 

Their  trick  is  so  novel  that  although  we  have 
been  put  on  our  guard,  we  cannot  too  often  expose 
it,  until  we  are  sure  that  it  has  failed.  Four  years 


appeared  in  the  North  American  Review  for  October,  1918,  under 
the  title  "A  Judas  Peace."  Copyrighted  by  the  North  American  Review 
Publishing  Company. 

238 


CAMPAIGNING  FOR  DUPES  239 

ago,  in  August,  1914,  the  German  Emperor  and 
his  wicked  ring  of  militarists  and  capitalists 
plunged  the  world  into  a  war  by  which  they 
planned  and  fully  expected  to  conquer  it.  They 
calculated  on  taking  Paris  and  destroying  France 
in  three  weeks,  and  then  they  intended  to  turn 
against  Russia,  and  to  shatter  her  power  before 
the  snow  fell. 

They  were  wonderful  calculators,  those  Ger- 
mans, and  on  paper  they  could  reduce  everything 
to  their  will,  down  to  the  fraction  of  millimetres 
or  grams;  but  the  minds  and  souls  and  consciences 
of  non-Germans  they  could  not  penetrate.  "Every 
man  imputes  himself,"  said  Tennyson,  and  the 
Kaiser  and  his  ring  imputed  to  the  peoples  whom 
they  went  forth  to  blast  the  base  fears,  the  cring- 
ing and  the  deceit,  which  they  themselves  would 
resort  to  if  they  were  threatened  by  an  im- 
mensely overwhelming  enemy.  Thanks,  however, 
to  the  heroic  sense  of  honour  and  of  duty  of  Albert, 
the  King  of  the  Belgians,  thanks,  also,  to  the 
glorious  valour  of  the  handful  of  Belgian  troops 
who  defended  Liege  and  delayed  the  onrushing 
German  hosts,  the  Kaiser's  boastful  scheme  of 
capturing  Paris  was  undone :  he  did  not  dine  there 
on  August  1 5th,  Napoleon's  birthday;  he  has  not 
dined  there  since;  nor  is  he  likely  ever  to  enter 


240  VOLLEYS  FROM  A  NON-COMBATANT 

the  French  capital  again,  unless  it  be  as  a  prisoner. 
Joffre  allowed  the  invaders  to  come  as  near  Paris 
as  he  needed  to  carry  out  his  strategy,  and  then 
the  incomparable  Foch  drove  through  their  centre, 
and  they  reeled  back  to  the  Aisne,  halfway  to  the 
German  borders. 

If  the  Germans'  reason  for  going  to  war  had 
been  sincere,  they  might  have  stopped  after  the 
Marne;  because  in  the  forty  days'  campaign  it  had 
been  made  perfectly  evident  that  France  and 
Russia  had  had  no  intention  of  attacking  Germany, 
and  that  they  would  gladly  return  to  peace  if  the 
German  assailants  withdrew  to  their  own  country 
and  gave  up  fighting.  The  reason  alleged  by  the 
Germans,  however,  was  a  lie;  they  pretended 
that  they  were  bent  on  defending  Germany  from 
aggression;  the  real  purpose  in  their  heart  was  to 
attain  world  dominion. 

After  the  battle  of  the  Marne,  therefore,  seeing 
themselves  baffled  in  getting  world  dominion  by 
the  direct  way,  they  decided  to  get  it  by  the 
indirect  way.  This  consisted  in  achieving  their 
Middle-Europe  project  by  which,  through  the  aid 
of  their  vassals — Austria,  Bulgaria,  and  Turkey— 
they  should  rule  the  Balkans,  and  western  Asia 
from  Constantinople  to  Bagdad.  Through  bribery 
and  the  suborning  of  treason  they  destroyed 


CAMPAIGNING  FOR  DUPES  241 

Russia's  armies  and  instigated  the  revolution 
which  deposed  the  Czar,  and  left  Russia  disunited 
and  without  an  orderly  government.  Germany 
found  ready  tools  in  the  Bolshevist  leaders,  and 
seized  large  tracts  of  Russia  which  she  now  included 
in  the  Middle-Europe  Empire. 

The  dominion  of  Middle  Europe  being  thus 
actually  established,  and  having  a  population  of 
two  hundred  million  or  more  inhabitants,  Ger- 
many sought  for  peace.  She  let  it  be  whispered 
that  she  would  consent  to  certain  restitutions  in 
Belgium,  France,  and  Italy — and  why  should 
she  not  consent?  From  Middle  Europe  she  could 
raise  an  army  of  twenty  million  soldiers,  and  take 
back  whatever  she  might  grant  to  the  Allies  for 
the  sake  of  securing  an  immediate  peace.  Let 
peace  once  come  on  her  terms  and  she  would  be 
able  to  smash  France  and  Italy  and  even  to  over- 
come England  at  her  pleasure. 

This  was  the  first  German  peace  drive  nearly 
two  years  ago,  and  it  did  not  succeed,  because  the 
Western  Powers  saw  through  its  deceit.  Ever 
since  then  the  Germans  have  attempted  to  catch 
the  civilized  nations  by  it.  Any  ruse  that  would 
leave  Germany  in  possession  of  Middle  Europe 
would  leave  her  despot  of  the  world.  Owing  to 
her  incapacity  to  understand  foreign  nations,  she 


242  VOLLEYS  FROM  A  NON-COMBATANT 

suffered  an  amazing  surprise  in  April,  1917,  when 
the  United  States  entered  the  war  against  her. 
The  Kaiser  and  his  parrots  pretended  that  this  was 
of  no  importance,  that  the  Americans  were  merely 
bluffing,  that  they  had  no  army,  and  that  even  if 
they  raised  one  the  American  soldiers  were  too 
cowardly  to  fight. 

Woe  to  the  ruler  who  feeds  lies  to  his  people! 
Some  Germans  there  must  have  been  who,  like 
Belshazzar's  courtiers,  saw  the  terrible  writing  on 
the  wall.  Even  the  most  truculent  of  the  Prus- 
sians recognized  that  before  the  Americans  were 
prepared  to  come  in,  in  force,  Germany,  having 
failed  to  entice  the  Allies  into  a  negotiated  peace, 
must  crush  them  on  the  battlefield.  They  under- 
took to  carry  out  this  last  desperate  plan  by  their 
drive  which  began  on  March  21,  1918,  and  was  fol- 
lowed by  several  others  in  which  at  great  cost  they 
drove  back  both  the  French  and  the  British  armies. 
Then  they  were  checked.  On  July  15,  Foch  de- 
livered a  counter-stroke  which  stunned  them  and 
he  has  rained  blow  after  blow  on  them  ever  since, 
not  merely  causing  them  to  abandon  most  of  the 
territory  they  had  conquered  since  March,  but 
teaching  them  the  habit  of  retreating,  which  they 
learned  with  the  efficiency  to  be  expected  of  such 
thorough-going  and  docile  scholars. 


CAMPAIGNING  FOR  DUPES  243 

The  Allied  victory — for  it  is  already  a  real  vic- 
tory, inasmuch  as  it  has  proved  that  the  Germans 
cannot  win  in  battle — has  led  them  to  resort  again 
to  peace  propaganda.  Since  the  time  of  Frederick 
the  Great,  force  and  mendacity  have  been  the  two 
chosen  weapons  of  Prussia,  and  in  this  atrocious 
war  they  have  gained  more  by  mendacity — which 
includes  bribery,  corruption,  deceit,  and  plain  lies 
— than  by  force. 

What  is  it  they  hope  to  achieve  by  mendacity 
now?  They  hope  to  fool  the  Allied  nations  into 
accepting  terms  of  peace  by  which  not  only  Prus- 
sian militarism,  the  ascendency  of  the  Junkers, 
the  autocracy  of  the  Hohenzollern,  and  the  ruth- 
lessness  of  the  commercial  and  industrial  ring, 
typified  in  Ballin,  shall  remain  undisturbed,  but 
also  their  Middle  Europe  Empire  shall  stand 
unshaken.  How  can  they  expect  to  accomplish 
this,  you  may  well  ask ;  how  can  any  Allied  minis- 
ters or  public  men  be  such  fools  as  to  fall  into  this 
obvious  German  trap?  The  answer  is  clear;  there 
is  probably  not  an  Allied  Cabinet  Minister,  in 
Europe  or  here,  who  is  fooled,  but  they  are  all  in 
bondage  to  public  opinion;  and  if  the  public  opin- 
ion which  sways  them  demands  peace  on  any  terms 
there  is  danger  that  they  will  listen  and  submit. 

So  the  Germans  aim  their  campaign  of  mendac- 


244  VOLLEYS  FROM  A  NON-COMBATANT 

ity,  not  against  the  Cabinet  officers,  but  against 
the  people  in  the  Allied  countries.  They  count 
on  winning  over  enough  men  and  women  to  turn 
the  decision  in  their  favour.  In  short,  they  reckon 
that  every  country  has  a  large  number  of  dupes. 
Are  you  one?  When  their  propaganda  reaches 
you  in  some  sly  and  seductive  disguise,  are  you  the 
sort  of  person  who  will  be  caught  by  it?  Shall 
you  say:  "That  sounds  reasonable  and  just;  why 
shouldn't  it  be  carried  out?" 

Apparently  the  Germans  have  decided  to  employ 
two  forms  of  appeal — the  pious  and  the  pathetic. 
They  have  already  begun  to  work  several  varieties 
of  pious  appeal,  all  of  which  are  based  on  the  New 
Testament  and  the  doctrines  of  Christ.  Months 
ago  clergymen,  who  were  secretly  pro-German  or 
pacifist,  began  to  utter  in  many  parts  of  this  coun- 
try the  warning  that  as  Christ  bids  us  to  love  our 
neighbours,  when  the  time  comes  to  end  the  war 
we  must  not  be  harsh  or  vindictive  toward  the  Ger- 
mans, but  must  forgive  and  forget  their  crimes  and 
atrocities.  Even  admitting  that  the  Germans  did 
wrong,  they  continue,  we  must  take  them  back 
into  our  confidence  and  esteem;  otherwise  we 
should  do  wrong  and  two  wrongs  do  not  make  a 
right.  In  the  parable  of  the  prodigal  son  did  not 


CAMPAIGNING  FOR  DUPES  245 

Jesus  teach  that  the  sinner  must  not  only  be  for- 
given, but  feasted  and  made  much  of? 

When  I  have  dissented  from  this  application  of 
Christ's  parable,  I  have  been  asked  by  ministers 
whose  sincerity  was  above  suspicion :  "  But  must 
we  not  distinguish  between  the  crime  and  the 
criminal?  Can  we  not  love  the  criminal  though 
we  hate  his  crime?"  I  have  observed  in  most 
cases  that  parsons  who  endeavour  to  make  this 
distinction  usually  minimize  the  crime  and  white- 
wash the  criminal.  They  leave  on  their  congrega- 
tion the  impression  that,  after  all,  we  must  not  be 
too  hard  on  the  Germans,  they  are  so  much  like 
the  rest  of  us. 

Now  ministers  of  Christ,  of  whatever  creed,  who 
talk  in  this  loose  way  sin  against  Justice,  and  Jus- 
tice is  a  very  holy  ideal  planted  by  God  in  the  human 
soul.  Whoever  denies  or  perverts  Justice,  sins 
against  God. 

Of  all  persons,  one  would  think  clergymen  should 
be  the  last  to  shake  popular  respect  for  the  few 
elemental  ideals  on  which  civilization  rests — ideals 
among  which  Justice  is  the  most  essential.  For 
the  men  who  devote  their  lives  especially  to  cher- 
ishing and  teaching  the  sacred  things  of  the  spirit 
ought  to  know  by  what  long  and  painful  stages 
each  of  the  ideals  came  to  be  recognized  and  then 


246  VOLLEYS  FROM  A  NON-COMBATANT 

revered  by  men.  Nothing  could  be  more  wanton 
or  more  impious  than  to  cast  away  on  the  caprice 
of  a  moment  the  ideal  for  which  the  ages  have 
groaned  in  travail,  and  thousands — it  may  be 
myriads — have  sacrificed  their  lives. 

Yet  this  is  what  any  one  does  who  proposes  to 
leave  Justice  out  of  the  count.  For  a  half  century 
past  mawkish  sentimentalists  have  winced  at  seeing 
Justice  done;  they  send  flowers  to  atrocious  crim- 
inals in  prison,  or  sign  petitions  to  have  them  par- 
doned and  released.  They  lay  stress  on  any  trifle 
to  extenuate,  to  palliate,  to  excuse.  Unless  the 
respect  for  Justice  be  quickened,  morals  will  vanish 
from  among  men,  for  Justice  is  the  backbone  of 
morals,  and  without  morals  civilization  dies. 

What  shall  we  say,  then,  for  those  persons  who 
urge  or  insidiously  suggest  that  we  hold  back  the 
hand  of  Justice  when  we  come  to  the  great  day 
of  reckoning  with  Germany?  They  would  make 
us  abettors  of  the  most  awful  criminals  in  history, 
and  they  would  mask  their  baseness  by  quoting 
from  the  New  Testament  the  admonition  to  love 
our  enemies. 

Whoever  reads  Christ's  utterances,  however, 
will  discover  that  he  never  sanctions  the  surrender 
of  the  moral  law.  In  every  one  of  his  precepts 
he  assumes  that  the  Divine  Justice  operates 


CAMPAIGNING  FOR  DUPES  247 

throughout  the  universe.  Never  for  a  moment 
does  He  command  you  to  stand  by  and  see  evil 
done  to  others;  on  the  contrary,  He  presupposes 
that  you  will  and  must  defend  the  great  principles 
of  God  to  the  death,  as  He  himself  did.  He  was 
not  the  spineless,  mushy  moralist  whom  the  paci- 
fists have  tried  to  palm  off  upon  us.  In  all  the 
books  of  religion  there  are  no  condemnations  so 
terrible  as  His. 

Listen  to  Him,  if  you  have  any  doubt:  "And 
Jesus  called  a  little  child  unto  him,  and  set  him  in 
the  midst  of  them  .  .  .  Whoso  shall  offend 
one  of  these  little  ones  which  believe  in  me,  it  were 
better  for  him  that  a  millstone  were  hanged  about 
his  neck,  and  that  he  were  drowned  in  the  depths 
of  the  sea."  (Matthew,  xvn,  2-6.) 

How  do  the  apologists  of  the  Germans  reconcile 
this  with  the  slaughter  of  a  million  or  more  little 
children — defenceless  and  unoffending,  in  Belgium, 
in  France,  in  Poland,  in  Serbia,  in  Russia,  in  Ar- 
menia— by  Germans  or  at  their  instigation?  At 
this  hour,  many  thousands,  torn  from  their  parents, 
are  wandering  helpless  and  uncomforted  over 
Europe,  or  waiting  in  refuges  opened  for  them  by 
compassionate  French  and  Americans.  If  we  are 
to  believe  Christ,  each  of  these  little  ones  is  like 
a  millstone  hanged  about  the  neck  of  the  Kaiser, 


248   VOLLEYS  FROM  A  NON-COMBATANT 

since  he  it  was  who  commanded  or  sanctioned  these 
atrocities.  He  has  out-Heroded  Herod;  for  the 
innocents  whom  Herod  slew  numbered  only  a  few 
hundred,  but  the  Kaiser's  victims  surpass  a  million. 
What  comfort  can  the  scribes  and  hypocrites  of 
our  time  draw  from  the  Christ  who  said  to  their 
predecessors:  "Ye  serpents,  ye  generation  of 
vipers,  how  can  ye  escape  the  damnation  of  hell?" 
(Matthew,  xxm,  33.)  Or  was  it  a  mild  man  who 
approved  the  judgment  of  the  master  of  the  un- 
profitable servant  that  he  should  be  cast  into  outer 
darkness:  "there  shall  be  weeping  and  gnashing 
of  teeth."  (Matthew,  xxv,  30.)  Jesus  never 
slackened  in  his  condemnation  of  the  scribes — 
"Which  devour  widows'  houses  and  for  a  pretense 
make  long  prayers :  these  shall  receive  greater  dam- 
nation." (Mark,  xn,  40.)  When  the  wicked 
husbandmen  slew  the  heir  of  the  vineyard,  their 
employer  should  come  and  destroy  them  (Mark, 
xii,  9) — very  different  doctrine  from  the  behest 
to  turn  the  other  cheek.  Jesus  told  his  disciples 
that  it  would  be  better  in  the  day  of  judgment  for 
Sodom  and  Gomorrah  than  for  the  city  which  re- 
fused to  listen  to  their  teaching  (Matthew,  x,  15). 
With  sternness  still  more  awful,  he  foretold  that 
the  Son  of  Man  shall  send  forth  his  angels  to  gather 
"all  things  which  offend  and  them  which  do  in- 


CAMPAIGNING  FOR  DUPES  249 

iquity,  and  shall  cast  them  into  a  furnace  of  fire; 
there  shall  be  wailing  and  gnashing  of  teeth." 
(Matthew,  xm,  41-42.) 

In  vain  do  those  who  would  rescue  the  Huns 
from  the  Nemesis  which  is  overtaking  them  appeal 
to  the  pacifism  of  Christ.  They  wilfully  mis- 
interpret, and  their  misinterpretation  is  impious. 
Christ  never  taught  that  a  man  should  stand  by 
and  see  a  ruffian  attack  a  woman,  or  a  brute  mal- 
treat a  child,  or  that  a  murderer  should  be  let  off. 
Christ  did  not  hesitate  to  use  a  scourge  on  the 
money-changers  in  the  Temple.  He  could  never 
have  been  the  supreme  spokesman  of  the  Divine 
Love  if  he  had  not  also  revered  the  Divine 
Justice. 

I  do  not  think  that  the  propaganda  of  pacifists 
and  secret  pro-Germans  will  fool  the  American 
people  into  believing  that  Christ  would  condone 
the  unspeakable  crimes  of  the  Germans,  or  that  he 
would  approve  of  forgiving  and  forgetting  at  the 
expense  of  Divine  Justice.  The  Devil  can  cite 
Scripture  for  his  purpose.  Has  not  Bernhardi 
brazenly  argued:  "Christ  himself  said:  fl  am  not 
come  to  send  peace  on  earth  but  a  sword.'  .  .  . 
Thus,  according  to  Christianity,  we  cannot  dis- 
approve of  war  in  itself,  but  must  admit  it  is 
justified  morally  and  historically." 


25o  VOLLEYS  FROM  A  NON-COMBATANT 

Let  us,  therefore,  be  on  our  guard  against  Ger- 
man and  pacifist  interpretations  of  the  spirit  of 
Christ's  teaching.  And  if  we  doubt  the  validity 
of  the  Christian  code,  let  us  turn  to  the  Pagan,  for 
example.  How  have  we  advanced,  if  our  rever- 
ence for  Justice  falls  short  of  the  Roman  father  and 
judge  two  thousand  years  ago,  who  condemned 
his  own  son  to  death?  Let  Justice  be  done  though 
the  heavens  fall. 

We  have  glanced  at  the  Pious  Appeal,  let  us 
turn  now  to  the  Pathetic  Appeal.  This  is  to  be 
concocted  for  the  wives  and  mothers  of  American 
soldiers  to  swallow.  Their  heartstrings  are  to  be 
wrung.  "Why,"  they  are  to  be  asked,  "should 
you  go  on  bearing  the  suspense  of  having  your 
husbands  and  sons  at  the  front  ?  Why  should  you 
sink  in  grief  as  news  comes  of  their  death,  leaving 
you  to  live  out  a  broken-hearted  existence?  You 
ought  no  longer  to  suffer,  because  there  is  no  longer 
reason  to  continue  the  war.  The  Germans  are 
ready  to  stop.  They  offer  to  restore  Belgium, 
they  will  give  back  Alsace-Lorraine  to  France, 
they  will  satisfy  Italy.  Why  then  prolong  the 
bloodshed,  the  agony,  the  horrors  ?  The  Germans 
themselves  deplore  this.  If  the  Allies  persist,  will 
not  the  guilt  fall  on  them  ?  If  America  keeps  on, 


CAMPAIGNING  FOR  DUPES  251 

does  it  not  confirm  the  German  charge  that  it  is 
you  and  the  Allies,  not  they,  who  are  filled  with  the 
lust  of  war,  and  the  desire  for  conquest?'' 

In  some  such  form  as  this,  women  of  America, 
the  Germans  will  frame  their  serpent  argument  for 
you,  and  they  think  so  meanly  of  your  intelligence 
and  of  your  spirit  that  they  expect  to  make  you 
their  accomplices.  How  little  they  know  you! 
They  suppose  that  your  courage  has  been  worn 
down  under  the  strain  of  absence  and  the  shock 
of  bereavement.  Their  psychologists  have  told 
them  that  you  are  volatile,  nervous,  fond  of  luxury 
and  comfort,  and  unable  to  endure  hardship;  there- 
fore, they  expect  that  you  will  be  their  easy  dupes, 
and  echo  their  desperate  cry  for  peace. 

What  have  you  done  to  justify  any  one  in  imput- 
ing to  you  such  baseness?  From  the  day  we  en- 
tered the  war  until  now,  who  has  heard  you  murmur 
or  complain  ?  If  you  have  shed  tears,  nobody  has 
seen  them.  I  have  known  many  mothers  who 
have  been  as  eager  as  their  sons  to  have  them  go, 
and  many  wives  who  would  have  cut  out  their 
tongues  rather  than  have  urged  their  husbands 
to  hold  back.  No!  The  patriotic  resolution  of 
American  women  has  already  had  immense  influ- 
ence. Our  troops  in  the  field  feel  that  influence 
supporting  them,  and  it  will  never  flag.  Dur- 


252  VOLLEYS  FROM  A  NON-COMBATANT 

ing  our  Civil  War,  fifty  years  ago,  it  was  the  women, 
North  and  South,  who  held  out  steadfastly  to  the 
end.  It  was  not  women,  but  men — Copperheads, 
Knights  of  the  Golden  Circle,  and  mongrels  of  all 
sorts  who  traitorously  tried  to  stop  the  war;  just 
as  in  these  days  it  has  been  men,  who  in  the  House 
of  Representatives  and  in  the  Senate  of  the  United 
States  have  attempted,  by  their  reptilian  votes,  to 
paralyze  the  arm  of  President  Wilson  and  further 
the  interests  of  the  Kaiser. 

As  the  needs  have  grown  during  the  struggle, 
British  women,  without  parade  or  self-glorification, 
have  sprung  forward  to  fill  the  occupations  left 
vacant  by  the  men  gone  to  the  front.  How  magni- 
ficent have  been  the  women  of  France,  without 
whose  service  the  harvests  which  were  to  feed  the 
French  armies  could  never  have  been  reaped !  Oh, 
the  indomitable,  patient,  devoted,  faithful  women 
of  France,  worthy  kindred  of  the  immortal  Joan ! 
Let  us  never  doubt  that,  if  the  call  comes,  the 
American  women  will  match  the  heroism  and  forti- 
tude of  their  sisters  overseas.  The  expert  psycholo- 
gists, on  whom  the  Kaiser  and  his  staff  depend 
when  they  weave  their  plots  against  the  honour 
and  life  of  foreign  peoples,  are  as  imbecile  as  were 
the  astrologers  whom  superstitious  despots  at- 
tached to  their  courts  and  consulted  four  hundred 


CAMPAIGNING  FOR  DUPES  253 

years  ago.  By  what  trick  of  irony  has  Fate,  which 
allowed  Germany  to  make  her  way  in  peace  by 
means  of  her  pedants,  brought  it  about  that  her 
pedants  should  work  her  undoing? 

The  women  of  the  Allied  countries  will  be  the 
less  likely  to  be  inveigled  into  any  hysterical 
movement  for  premature  peace,  when  they  re- 
member the  unwomanly,  nay,  the  inhuman,  con- 
duct of  the  German  women.  Friends  of  mine 
spent  a  week  at  Evian-les-Bains,  the  French  town 
on  Lake  Geneva,  to  which  long  trains  of  repatries 
come  twice  a  day  with  their  carloads  of  human 
wrecks,  who  have  passed  through  the  Inferno  of 
German  prisons  and  detention — through  starva- 
tion, abuse,  and  persecution.  Many  of  them 
are  far  gone  in  consumption;  all  of  them  are  so 
emaciated  and  spent  that  they  can  be  of  no  further 
use  in  the  war,  if  ever  again  on  earth.  The  Ger- 
mans send  them,  not  out  of  compassion,  but  in 
order  to  save  the  bare  pittance  of  food,  by  which 
they  have  carried  out  their  Satanic  policy  of  slow 
starvation;  they  send  them  also  as  a  warning  to 
the  French  people  and  soldiers  of  the  terrors 
which  await  them  if  they  are  captured  by  the 
Germans,  or  if  Germany  wins.  The  German 
psychologists,  however,  fail  again,  for  the  French, 
instead  of  being  terrorized  at  the  sight  of  these 


254  VOLLEYS  FROM  A  NON-COMBATANT 

victims  of  Teutonic  cruelty,  are  simply  stirred  to 
redouble  their  efforts  to  wipe  out  the  Hun.  • 

My  Red  Cross  friends  attended  the  coming  of 
each  train  at  Evian,  and  did  what  they  could  to 
comfort  the  victims.  They  took  special  pains 
to  hear  the  stories  of  the  women,  whom  they  ques- 
tioned separately  so  as  to  get  the  experiences  of 
each  before  she  had  concerted  with  the  others  a 
uniform  story.  Every  French  woman  reported 
that  when  they  came  to  a  station  in  Germany, 
and  had  to  get  out  of  the  train,  they  found  the 
platform  crowded  with  German  women,  who  spat 
in  their  faces  and  beat  them  with  their  fists,  and 
cursed  them,  and  otherwise  maltreated  them. 
My  friends  noticed  that  the  little  French  children, 
on  landing  on  the  platform  at  Evian,  all  instinc- 
tively held  their  little  arms  in  front  of  their  faces; 
they,  too,  had  been  pounded  and  spat  upon  by 
the  German  women.  When  a  race  of  women 
practises  such  abominable  cowardice  on  defence- 
less little  children,  what  wonder  that  their  husbands 
and  sons  in  the  German  army  commit  atrocities 
and  gloat  over  them. 

The  women  of  America  will  not  be  duped  by 
the  German  drive  for  a  Judas  peace,  because  they 
are  intelligent,  and  because,  also,  their  hearts 
cannot  be  deceived.  How  could  a  mother  who 


CAMPAIGNING  FOR  DUPES  255 

has  lost  a  son,  or  a  wife  who  has  lost  a  husband  in 
the  war,  consent  to  a  scheme  which  would  render 
such  losses  vain?  A  year  or  two  ago  many 
Americans  were  asking:  "Why  should  we  go  into 
the  war?"  Everybody  knows  why  now.  From 
the  moment  when  our  first  units  of  strong, 
clean,  chivalrous,  honour-loving  American  soldiers 
reached  the  front,  saw  the  ruin  and  devastation, 
saw  the  barbaric  methods  of  the  Hun  fighters, 
they  understood  the  reason.  I  have  read  letters 
from  more  than  one  of  these  young  fellows,  who 
had  only  a  hazy  idea  of  what  the  war  was  about 
when  they  left  home,  but  who  on  witnessing  the 
horrors  said:  "We  must  put  this  thing  down 
forever,  and  we  will  fight  until  it  is  put  down,  if  it 
takes  a  long  lifetime."  I  have  heard  a  Canadian 
Cabinet  member  say:  "It  may  require  three  years 
or  five  or  more,  but  what  is  any  brief  length  of 
time  compared  with  all  the  future?  Although 
our  whole  generation  has  to  be  sacrificed,  we 
must  save  posterity  from  the  Prussian  terror." 
And  in  quite  the  same  vein,  a  restrained,  quiet, 
and  very  earnest  French  professor  said  to  me: 
"Do  not  suppose  that  France  will  let  up  until  we 
have  swept  away  the  possibility  that  this  awful 
war  will  have  to  be  fought  over  again  by  our 
children."  It  is  estimated  that  three  million 


256  VOLLEYS  FROM  A  NON-COMBATANT 

civilized  men  have  already  laid  down  their  lives 
in  France  in  order  to  defeat  the  Hun,  to  liberate 
mankind  from  the  incubus  of  Prussian  militarism, 
and  to  make  the  world  safe  for  Democracy.  They 
died  willingly,  bravely,  but  every  one  of  them 
would  rise  in  his  grave  if  he  knew  that  the  great 
object  for  which  he  gave  his  life  was  to  be  wrecked 
by  cunning  and  mendacious  diplomats.  Over 
the  grave  of  a  British  soldier  in  France  is  carved 
this  epitaph,  which  is  all  the  more  poignant  be- 
cause it  is  so  simple: 

When  you  go  home,  tell  them  of  us  and  say: 
"  For  your  to-morrow  they  gave  their  to-day." 

Woe  unto  us,  if  we  lose  through  dullness  or  neg- 
ligence the  to-morrow  which  these  millions  of 
brave  men  sacrificed  their  lives  to  secure  for  us. 

They  believed  that  their  cause  would  triumph, 
because  they  believed  that  Justice  abides  in  the 
heart  of  the  world.  Let  us  not  confuse  Justice 
with  Vengeance.  Very  few  of  the  men,  living 
or  dead,  who  have  fought  to  save  civilization  have 
been  vindictive.  Very  few  have  cried  out  for 
revenge.  It  seems  as  if  all  were  aware  that  a 
greater  than  Man  would  punish.  "Vengeance 
is  mine;  I  will  repay,"  saith  the  Lord. 

But  each  of  the  dead  would  be  amazed  to  hear 


CAMPAIGNING  FOR  DUPES  257 

any  one  assert  that  the  wicked  must  not  have 
justice  meted  out  to  them.  Some  of  the  evil 
propagandists  have  so  lost  contact  with  morality 
that  they  appear  to  argue  that  when  a  criminal's 
iniquities  surpass  all  bounds,  we  must  not  think 
of  condemning  him,  much  less  of  punishing  him, 
but  that  we  must  forgive  him  and  take  him  back 
into  our  friendship.  If  a  private  individual  should 
torment  and  slay  a  little  child,  or  outrage  a  woman, 
or  murder  an  old  man,  Justice  would  most  properly 
seize  and  punish  him.  How  can  it  be,  therefore, 
that  we  should  absolve  the  Kaiser,  who,  through 
his  agents,  has  committed  these  crimes  a  million 
fold.  Only  the  other  day  (August  30)  the  Cologne 
Folks  Zeitung,  one  of  the  chief  organs  of  Ger- 
man Kultur,  said  of  the  German  practice  of  Fright- 
fulness:  "Much  as  we  detest  it  as  human  beings 
and  as  Christians,  yet  we  exult  in  it  as  Germans" 

This  war  can  never  end  in  a  just  peace  until  the 
German  shall  be  forced  to  pay  for  everything  which 
can  be  paid  for.  He  has  sunk  fourteen  million 
tons  of  the  world's  shipping,  and  he  exults  in  this 
enormous  crime;  but  Justice  will  not  be  placated 
until  he  has  paid  back  ton  for  ton.  He  has  ravaged 
thousands  of  square  miles  of  French  and  Belgian, 
Polish  and  Serbian  territory;  he  has  laid  Armenia 


258  VOLLEYS  FROM  A  NON-COMBATANT 

waste,  he  has  damaged  Italy.  So  far  as  material 
devastation  and  losses  can  be  paid  for  and  restored, 
he  shall  pay  for  them.  The  great  spiritual  calami- 
ties which  he  has  brought  upon  the  world,  the 
doctrines  of  inhumanity  and  mendacity  which  he 
has  shed  over  it  like  a  poisonous  gas,  the  in- 
numerable bereavements,  the  blighting  and  shat- 
tering of  millions  of  families,  the  heartaches  and 
sufferings  of  the  myriads  who  survive  to  lead 
crippled  lives,  these  concerns  of  the  spirit  cannot 
be  compensated  in  money.  These  things  we  leave 
to  the  vengeance  of  God. 

Pacifists,  and  all  those  who  would  shield  Ger- 
many from  the  penalty  of  her  crimes,  protest 
that  it  will  take  fifty  years  for  her  to  make  retribu- 
tion. Well,  what  of  it,  be  it  fifty  years  or  five 
hundred?  Destiny  waited  three  hundred  and 
thirty  years  from  the  landing  of  the  first  slave  in 
Baltimore  to  the  emancipation  of  the  last  slave 
in  the  United  States.  During  entire  centuries 
men  thought  that  the  crime  had  been  forgotten, 
and  then  the  Divine  Wrath,  after  a  tremendous 
war,  collected  the  bill. 

Forgetful  is  green  earth;  the  Gods  alone 
Remember  everlastingly;  they  strike 
Remorselessly,  and  ever  like  for  like 

By  their  great  memories  the  Gods  are  known. 


CAMPAIGNING  FOR  DUPES  259 

The  German  people  went  into  the  Atrocious 
War  not  only  willingly  but  eagerly.  For  thirty 
years  they  had  been  taught  to  look  forward  to  it, 
as  the  means  whereby  they  should  increase  their 
wealth  and  power.  Their  Prussian  rulers  had  al- 
ways conducted  war  as  a  major  form  of  piracy, 
and  the  Germans  had  come  to  regard  it  as  a 
legitimate  means  to  gain.  This  time  the  lure 
held  up  before  them  was  World  Dominion,  and 
when  the  Allies  dashed  their  hope  of  a  swift  victory, 
Helfferich,  the  German  Minister  of  Finance,  ex- 
horted them  to  hold  on,  because,  he  assured  them, 
the  Allies  would  be  beaten  and  be  forced  to  pay 
such  vast  indemnities,  that  every  German  man, 
woman,  and  child  and  his  descendants  would  be 
rich  forever.  And  now,  when  the  German  military 
chance  of  conquering  the  world  and  appropriating 
its  wealth  has  vanished,  we  are  asked  to  forgive 
the  German  nation  which,  for  the  sake  of  its  selfish 
greed,  heartlessly  brought  havoc  and  destruction 
upon  the  earth.  It  may  not  be :  for  the  judgments 
of  the  Lord  are  true  and  righteous  altogether.  Ger- 
many did  not  take  care  that  the  wrongs  she  planned 
should  be  limited  in  time  or  extent;  she  deliberately 
intended  to  make  the  rest  of  mankind  her  vassals 
forever.  Half  a  century  seems  a  very  brief  period 
in  which  to  expiate  her  unspeakable  guilt. 


260  VOLLEYS  FROM  A  NON-COMBATANT 

Six  months  ago,  we  still  heard,  even  from  persons 
in  high  places,  that  the  German  army  could  never 
be  beaten,  and  that  therefore  the  Allies  must  have 
resort  to  a  negotiated  peace.  This  opinion,  how- 
ever, was  based  on  a  misconception  of  where  the 
vital  point  of  the  struggle  lay.  As  the  Germans 
seized  province  after  province,  state  after  state, 
and  especially  as  they  dissolved  Russia  by  their 
corruption,  and  annexed  the  huge  fragments 
which  composed  it,  our  doubters  lost  heart,  and 
talked  of  peace. 

But  from  the  beginning  of  the  war  the  vital  spot 
has  been  the  western  front;  for  in  war  the  object 
is  to  destroy  the  enemy's  army,  not  to  take  his 
territory.  If  you  destroy  his  army,  you  can  take 
whatever  territory  you  choose.  The  case  is  not 
unlike  that  of  an  octopus  which  clutches  spoils 
in  its  tentacles.  You  may  find  it  hard  to  cut  each 
off,  but  if  you  pierce  the  heart  of  the  monster,  all 
the  tentacles  will  relax  and  the  spoils  will  drop 
from  them.  This  is  what  will  happen  when  the 
Allied  armies  destroy  the  great  German  army  on 
the  west.  Belgium,  France,  the  Ukraine,  and 
all  Middle  Europe  will  slip  out  of  the  Teutonic 
control,  and  the  Hun  menace  to  civilization  will 
be  laid. 

As  I  write  this,  the  German  army  has  already 


CAMPAIGNING  FOR  DUPES  261 

been  driven  back,  and  unless  some  incredible 
disaster  to  the  Allies  should  supervene,  the  Teutons 
are  inevitably  beaten  in  the  field.  That  the  Ger- 
man despots  understand  this  is  proved  by  their 
frantic  efforts  to  secure  peace  by  chicane.  Only 
by  listening  to  their  guile,  and  by  being  duped 
into  accepting  a  part  to-day,  when  they  could 
have  the  whole  to-morrow,  could  the  Allies  lose 
the  certain  victory  which  awaits  them. 

We  must  not  slacken  our  preparation;  we  must 
push  on  with  larger  and  larger  forces,  and  never 
allow  the  wily  Huns  to  imagine  that  we  are  war- 
weary  or  downhearted  or  willing  to  compromise. 
During  the  latter  part  of  the  year  1864,  also, 
there  were  doubters,  cowards,  and  friends  of  the 
enemy,  who  still  beset  President  Lincoln  with 
declarations  that  the  Civil  War  was  a  failure 
and  that  he  must  make  peace.  But  he  knew  better. 
He  saw  that  the  end  was  near,  and  he  hastened 
to  attain  it.  No  man  hated  war  more  than  he  did, 
no  man's  heart  bore  a  heavier  burden  of  grief  than 
his  did;  but  he  would  not  betray  his  country  and 
the  world  in  order  to  silence  the  clamours  of 
sentimentalists  or  of  the  shallow-brained. 

Of  all  great  national  rulers,  none  has  surpassed 
Lincoln  in  a  sense  of  justice.  The  words  which  he 
spoke  to  our  fathers  in  their  crisis  were  so  just 


262  VOLLEYS  FROM  A  NON-COMBATANT 

that  they  apply  equally  to  us  in  our  crisis,  and 
we  can  conceive  of  no  similar  ordeal  in  which  they 
will  not  be  most  pertinent.  Therefore,  I  quote 
Lincoln's  immortal  passage: 

Fondly  do  we  hope,  fervently  do  we  pray,  that  this 
mighty  scourge  of  war  may  speedily  pass  away.  Yet,  if 
God  wills  that  it  continue  until  all  the  wealth  piled  by  the 
bondman's  two  hundred  and  fifty  years  of  unrequited  toil 
shall  be  sunk,  and  until  every  drop  of  blood  drawn  with  the 
lash  shall  be  paid  by  another  drawn  with  the  sword,  as  was 
said  three  thousand  years  ago,  so  still  it  must  be  said,  "The 
judgments  of  the  Lord  are  true  and  righteous  altogether." 

In  conclusion,  let  me  commend  the  serious 
reading  of  this  passage  to  those  who  have  been 
appealing  to  Lincoln's  phrase:  "With  malice 
toward  none,  with  charity  for  all,"  in  their  en- 
deavour to  incline  the  heart  of  the  American  nation 
to  a  peace  framed  in  the  interests  of  the  Hun,  and 
those  who  are  urging  us  to  make  the  way  of  the 
German  transgressors  easy.  I  do  not  believe 
that  the  United  States  and  the  civilized  world 
can  be  duped  to  their  destruction. 


X 

OUT  OF  THEIR  OWN  MOUTHS1 


THOSE  who  are  not  with  us  are  against  us. 
Never  before  in  human  history  has  the  choice 
of  Man  and  Nation  been  as  sharply  defined  as  it  is 
to-day.  The  future  of  mankind  depends  upon 
this  choice.  There  have  been  earlier  crises  out 
of  which  human  fate  proceeded  in  new  directions; 
but  the  contestants  in  those  conflicts  understood 
only  obscurely,  if  at  all,  the  ultimate  stakes  for 
which  they  were  fighting.  We  can  plead  no  such 
ignorance.  We  know  the  issue,  and  whither  it 
leads. 

Those  who  are  not  with  us  are  against  us.  On 
which  side  do  we  stand  ?  As  Americans,  we  assume 
that  we  stand  for  Civilization.  That  is  our  in- 
heritance. What  do  we  mean  by  Civilization? 
Surely  not  mere  comforts,  astonishing  improve- 


1  "Out  of  Their  Own  Mouths,  Utterances  of  German  Rulers,  Statesmen, 
Savants,  Publicists,  Journalists,  Poets,  Business  Men,  Party  Leaders,  and 
Soldiers."  Edited  by  Professor  Munroe  Smith,  of  Columbia  University. 
Preface  by  W.  R.  Thayer.  Republished  by  permission  of  D.  Appleton  &  Com- 
pany, New  York,  1917. 

263 


264  VOLLEYS  FROM  A  NON-COMBATANT 

ments  in  invention,  or  even  the  great  discoveries 
of  science  which  affect  only  the  body  and  not  the 
soul  of  man.  We  mean  the  recognition  of  Justice, 
a  keener  sensitiveness  to  Mercy,  an  undying 
devotion  to  Liberty,  a  quickened  conscience  which 
makes  us  shrink  from  doing  unto  any  one  that 
which  we  should  not  wish  him  to  do  to  us.  These 
are  the  ideals  of  Civilization  and  this  is  the  spirit 
in  which  alone  it  can  flourish.  Erudition,  though 
its  books  were  piled  higher  than  the  Tower  of 
Babel,  does  not  constitute  it;  nor  does  ability 
to  make  great  cannon,  or  chemicals,  or  military 
engines;  much  less  is  the  proof  of  Civilization 
to  be  found  in  the  power  to  convert  millions  of  men 
into  mere  machines,  unfree,  shorn  of  humanizing 
emotions,  abjectly  obedient  to  the  will,  however 
wicked,  of  the  despot  who  owns  them. 

If  at  the  beginning  of  the  Atrocious  War, 
Civilization  and  Barbarism  had  stood  embodied 
in  forms  revealing  the  very  nature  of  each,  there 
can  be  no  doubt  as  to  which  we  would  have  chosen. 
But  the  majority  of  mankind  lack  imagination— 
that  quality  which  penetrates  to  the  heart  and 
essence;  the  majority  live  only  on  the  surface,  a 
life  of  two  dimensions,  without  depth.  And  in 
this  case  many  influences  worked  deliberately  to 
blur  or  hide  the  nature  of  the  antagonists.  The 


OUT  OF  THEIR  OWN  MOUTHS        265 

Prussian  agents  over  here  and  our  native  apolo- 
gists for  Prussia  were  greatly  helped  by  the  fact 
that,  as  a  people,  we  are  not  cruel  and  that  we  do 
not  lie.  The  average  American  had  never  dreamed 
that  creatures  wearing  the  shape  of  men  could 
conceive,  much  less  commit,  such  horrors  and 
bestialities  as  were  devised  in  cold  blood  by  the 
German  General  Staff.  So  our  people  heard 
with  mingled  shock  and  incredulity  the  first 
accounts  of  Hunnish  atrocities.  It  took  a  long 
time  and  repeated  abominations  before  we  came 
to  believe  the  truth. 

Meanwhile  the  German  propagandists  increased 
doubt  here  by  brazenly  declaring  that  the  stories 
of  atrocities  were  concocted  by  their  enemies; 
and  when  this  impudence  began  to  fail  them  they 
proclaimed  that,  "After  all,  war  is  war";  and 
they  ransacked  history  for  instances  of  cruelty 
perpetrated  by  other  races,  including  ourselves, 
in  earlier  times.  In  mendacity,  too,  they  found 
us  as  easy  to  deceive  as  children  are  by  a  juggler's 
tricks. 

Little  by  little,  however,  the  evidence  that  the 
German  policy  of  atrocity  was  premeditated  be- 
came too  strong  to  be  refuted  even  by  their  sly  dis- 
avowals. We  were  forced  to  realize  that  the  slay- 
ing of  innocent  civilians,  the  ravishing  of  women, 


266  VOLLEYS  FROM  A  NON-COMBATANT 

the  burning  of  towns,  the  bombarding  of  libraries 
and  cathedrals,  the  wholesale  massacres,  the  starv- 
ing, enslaving,  and  exile  of  entire  populations  were 
not  due  to  such  outbursts  of  bloody  passions  as 
sometimes  blacken  warfare  in  civilized  countries 
but  were  deliberately  ordered  and  carried  out  with 
all  the  boasted  thoroughness  of  the  German  Gen- 
eral Staff.  And  as  this  awful  revelation  of  fiend- 
ishness  broke  upon  us,  we  began  to  perceive  that  it 
was  only  a  part,  the  necessary  product,  of  a  system 
for  conquering  the  world  and  reducing  it  to  slavish 
submission  of  the  House  of  Hohenzollern. 

ii 

The  book  which  follows1  gives  the  best  possible 
statement  of  the  principles  by  which  Prussian 
monarchs  and  ministers  were  governed,  of  the 
World  Empire  which  they  hoped  to  establish,  and 
of  the  means  by  which  they  expected  to  destroy 
Civilization  and  to  set  up  in  its  place  the  Dominion 
of  the  Hun.  Observe  that  these  statements  do  not 
come  from  me  or  from  any  other  partisan  of  Civili- 
zation, but  from  the  Germans  themselves.  Truth  is 
revealed  not  only  in  wine,  but  in  those  expressions 

"Out  of  Their  Own  Mouths,"  utterances  of  German  rulers,  statesmen, 
savants,  publicists,  journalists,  poets,  business  men,  party  leaders  and 
soldiers.  Compiled  and  edited  by  Professor  Monroe  Smith  of  Columbia 
University.  Introduction  by  W.  R.  Thayer.  D.  Appleton  and  Company, 
New  York,  1917. 


OUT  OF  THEIR  OWN  MOUTHS        267 

which  we  make  unconsciously  in  grief,  in  anger,  in 
exultation.  So  when  you  find,  in  the  passages  which 
follow,  the  writer  exulting  over  a  policy  which  seems 
to  you  to  be  damnable,  you  can  be  sure  that  he  is 
wearing  no  mask.  The  same  is  true  when  he  lays  be- 
fore you,  and  gloats  over  it,  a  scheme  of  perfidy;  or 
when  he  exposes,  quite  naively,  his  unbounded  self- 
conceit  and  the  vast  proportions  of  the  national 
swelled  head,  for  which  not  merely  Germany  but  Eu- 
rope was  too  small,  and  only  the  world  could  suffice. 
Considering  the  mass  of  testimony  which  had 
been  accumulating  during  the  twenty-five  years 
between  the  accession  of  William  II  and  his  launch- 
ing of  war  in  1914;  considering  also  how  openly 
the  Germans  talked  of  their  "Destiny,"  their  su- 
periority, their  fitness  to  rule  the  world,  it  is  sur- 
prising how  blind  other  nations  and  we  were.  We 
wrapped  ourselves  in  incredulity.  We  took  com- 
placent ease  in  the  thought  that  the  day  of  Napo- 
leon and  Caesar  had  passed;  that  the  world  was 
too  civilized  to  indulge  in  great  wars  of  conquest; 
that  commerce  and  banking  and  Socialist  interac- 
tions, not  to  mention  the  unprecedented  growth 
in  humane  standards,  had  created  an  interdepen- 
dence which  would  make  war  not  merely  improb- 
able but  unthinkable.  We  saw,  indeed,  that  Wil- 
liam II  was  neither  a  Napoleon  nor  a  Caesar;  but 


268   VOLLEYS  FROM  A  NON-COMBATANT 

we  did  not  sufficiently  allow  for  the  effect  of  the 
inordinate  ambition  and  monstrous  vanity  of  even 
a  neurotic  monarch  working  upon  a  people  like  the 
German.  The  size  of  the  fetish  never  measures 
the  strength  of  the  tribe  that  worships  it. 

The  war  for  World  Power  was  no  sudden  con- 
ception; but  only  after  the  victories  of  Prussia  fifty 
years  ago  did  it  become  the  definite  aim  of  the  mil- 
itary Junker  ring.  Having  beaten  Austria,  Prussia 
dominated  the  German  States,  whether  they  would 
or  not;  and  by  defeating  France,  she  united  Ger- 
many as  an  Empire  in  which  she  was  dominant. 
During  the  next  twenty  years,  Bismarck,  the  real 
ruler  of  Germany,  dismissed  the  propagandists  of 
Pan-Germanism  as  half-baked  theorists.  He  de- 
clared that  Germany  was  "a  satisfied  nation." 
He  planned  to  keep  Germany  at  the  head  of  Europe 
but  not  to  destroy  France,  England,  or  Italy,  nor  to 
cripple. Russia.  He  took  little  interest  in  colonies, 
nor  does  he  seem  to  have  been  humbugged  by  the 
plea  that  Germany  must  go  to  war  in  order  to  win  a 
place  in  the  sun.  He  knew  that  Germans  had  mi- 
grated to  all  parts  of  the  earth,  and  that  in  each  place 
they  were  prospering  by  their  thrift  and  industry. 

William  II  became  Kaiser  on  June  15,  1888,  and 
he  soon  let  the  world  know  that  he  regarded  him- 
self as  a  bigger  man  than  old  Bismarck.  Having 


OUT  OF  THEIR  OWN  MOUTHS         269 

dropped  Bismarck,  he  chose  as  advisers  mediocre 
men — bureaucrats,  militarists,  Junkers,  who,  with 
captains  of  industry,  shaped  the  policy  of  the  coun- 
try and  completed  the  Prussianization  of  the  non- 
Prussian  Germans.  Spurred  on  one  side  by  an 
unscrupulous  and  a  merciless  Militarist  caste  and 
on  the  other  by  an  equally  unscrupulous  and  merci- 
less Capitalist  class — there  have  been  no  modern 
money-hunters  like  the  Germans — German  inter- 
national policy  took  the  road  desired  by  the  Army 
and  by  the  capitalists.  Both  classes  flattered  the 
Kaiser  into  supposing  that  he  originated  their  poli- 
cies, and  that  these  were  essential  to  the  welfare 
of  Germany — an  easy  task,  for  he  was  a  megalo- 
maniac of  colossal  proportions. 

About  1895  the  dream  of  World  Dominion  solidi- 
fied into  something  more  than  a  dream.  Officials 
of  the  Army,  Navy,  and  State  Departments  began 
to  formulate  the  steps  required  to  attain  it. 
France  and  Russia — the  competing  land  Powers — 
could  easily  be  smashed;  but  England,  whose 
empire  stretched  round  the  earth,  could  be  reached 
and  overcome  only  on  the  sea.  So  Germany 
started  to  build  a  great  navy,  and  the  naval  officers 
at  their  mess  drank  regularly  their  toast  "  Auf  den 
Tag"  ("To  the  Day")— the  day  when  they  should 
be  strong  enough  to  meet  the  hated  English,  but 


270  VOLLEYS  FROM  A  NON-COMBATANT 

for  whom  the  Germans  pleasantly  assumed  they 
would  already  be  supreme.  Now  Pan-German- 
ists,  official  and  unofficial,  raised  their  paean  to  the 
superiority  of  the  Germanic  race.  Historians 
expounded  the  manifest  destiny  reserved  for  them. 
Parsons  bade  them  heed  the  word  of  God  and  slay 
the  degenerate  peoples.  A  mad  philosopher  glori- 
fied the  Superman — a  creature  whom  they  at  once 
assumed  was  German.  Men  of  science  found  a 
warrant  in  biology  for  the  destruction  of  the  weak 
by  the  strong.  The  Kaiser  himself  spoke  freely 
of  his  partnership  with  "der  alte  Gott" — a  connec- 
tion which  of  course  sealed  with  sanctity  the  imper- 
ial utterances  and  designs. 

Everything  being  ready,  and  the  enemies  of 
Germany  being  reported  by  the  Kaiser's  spies  as 
too  unprepared  to  fight,  the  Prussian  military  ring 
forced  the  war. 

in 

When  you  read  the  testimony  which  follows, 
therefore,  you  will  understand  that  the  war  was 
the  culmination  of  plans  extending  over  a  quarter 
of  a  century;  more  than  that,  that  it  sprang  from 
the  Prussian  nature,  which  had  proclaimed  for  a 
hundred  years  that  war  is  the  normal  state  of  na- 
tions. You  will  see  that  the  horrors,  the  hideous 


OUT  OF  THEIR  OWN  MOUTHS        271 

cruelties,  the  diabolical  devastation,  were  not  ex- 
ceptional crimes,  but  carefully  worked  out  parts 
of  the  Prussian  military  system  in  action. 

There  is  a  beast  in  every  man.  Prussian  war 
experts  long  ago  made  it  their  duty  to  unchain 
this  beast  and  to  give  it  free  play  during  war. 
They  discovered  how  to  excite  its  fury,  and  how  to 
train  that  fury  so  that  it  should  be  damnably  effi- 
cient. How  well  they  have  succeeded  Belgium  can 
tell,  and  Serbia  and  Poland  and  Armenia,  whose 
two  million  and  a  half  of  dead  were  victims  of 
massacre  arranged  by  Prussians  and  carried  out  by 
Turks.  The  sinking  of  the  Lusitania,  and  of  hun- 
dreds of  other  merchant  ships — not  enemy  ships 
only  but  also  neutral  ships;  the  execution  of  Edith 
Cavell  and  of  Captain  Fryatt,  the  slaughter  of 
hostages,  the  outrages  on  women  and  girls  of  all 
ages,  the  deportations,  the  starving  of  foreign  civil- 
ians in  prison  pens,  the  sinking  of  hospital  ships, 
the  poisoning  of  wells,  the  shooting  of  Red  Cross 
ambulance  drivers  and  nurses — these  are  all  de- 
liberate manifestations  of  the  Satanic  system  of 
Cruelty  which  the  Prussians  long  ago  adopted  as 
the  guiding  principle  of  their  war-making. 

Cruelty  has  been  an  attribute  of  the  Germans 
since  earliest  times.  The  Goths  and  Vandals  and 
their  kindred  barbarians  practised  it  as  a  matter 


272  VOLLEYS  FROM  A  NON-COMBATANT 

of  course.  The  Huns — the  spiritual  ancestors  of 
the  Prussians — raised  it  to  such  a  bad  eminence 
that  for  fourteen  centuries  they  stood  unchallenged 
as  foremost  in  cruelty. 

The  second  pillar  of  the  Prussian  system  is  Men- 
dacity. Frederick  the  Great  gloried  in  his  use  of 
it;  what  he  wrote  about  it  might  form  a  Manual 
of  Treachery.  Bismarck  was  an  expert  in  it. 
What  can  be  expected  of  a  nation  whose  national 
heroes  are  Frederick,  who  held  no  oath  sacred,  and 
Bismarck,  who  doctored  the  Ems  dispatch  ?  Men- 
dacity, as  practised  by  the  Prussians,  includes 
hypocrisy,  downright  lies,  treachery,  and  the  de- 
basing spy  system  which  has  been  employed  since 
1914  to  undermine  the  United  States.  Deceit 
belongs  properly  to  the  savage,  and  we  need  not 
wonder,  therefore,  that  it  has  been  made  a  specialty 
by  the  modern  Barbarians.  President  Wilson, 
whose  opportunities  for  knowing  details  have,  of 
course,  surpassed  those  of  any  other  American  in- 
dividual, has  carefully  distinguished  between  the 
German  people  and  the  German  Imperial  Govern- 
ment. With  that  clue  we  can,  in  all  this  terrible 
affair,  assign  responsibility  for  the  wicked  plans 
and  their  carrying  out. 

What  I  may  call  official  German  collective  men- 
dacity has  reached  its  climax  since  1896,  when  the 


OUT  OF  THEIR  OWN  MOUTHS        273 

Germans  began  secretly  to  plant  colonies  abroad; 
taking  care  that  the  new  immigrants  should  go  to 
strengthen  German  influence  in  chosen  countries, 
and  that  the  earlier  settlers  should  be  won  back  by 
blandishments  and  bribes  of  allegiance  to  German 
Imperialism.  This  was  Prince  Billow's  way  of 
"redeeming"  German  emigrants.  No  American, 
with  our  experience  of  the  past  three  years  before 
him,  needs  to  be  told  the  abominable  methods 
employed  or  the  results  achieved. 

Cruelty  and  Mendacity!  These  two  words  sum 
up  military  Prussianism.  Humanity  means  the 
victory  of  human  qualities  and  ideals  over  those 
of  the  beast.  Prussianism,  in  exalting  Cruelty, 
denies  Humanity  and  voluntarily  accepts  the 
standards  of  the  Beast.  So  Prussianism  is  an  out- 
law from  Humanity.  In  like  fashion,  by  practising 
and  glorifying  Mendacity,  Prussianism  denies  the 
primal  trust  of  man  in  man,  of  tribe  in  tribe,  which 
is  the  cornerstone  of  Civilization.  Prussianism 
flouts  the  sanctity  of  treaties,  and  laughs  at  all 
other  obligations  which  might  check  or  hamper  it; 
and  thereby  it  denies  international  faith,  and  makes 
itself  an  outlaw  from  Civilization. 

You  who  read  this  confession  of  such  ideals,  you 
who  remember  how  ruthlessly  they  have  been  put 
into  practice,  cannot  plead  ignorance  in  making 


274  VOLLEYS  FROM  A  NON-COMBATANT 

your  decisions  between  Civilization  and  Prussian- 
ism.  You  are  American;  can  you  picture  Washing- 
ton or  Lincoln  as  supporting  any  of  these  devilish 
doctrines?  You  are  American,  and  in  the  light 
of  what  the  Teutons  have  done  and  still  hope  to  do, 
you  cannot  doubt  that  if  they  got  a  foothold  here 
they  would  shoot  down  you  and  your  friends  as 
hostages,  destroy  your  home  and  your  town,  out- 
rage your  wife  and  daughters,  devastate  the  coun- 
try, and  try  to  terrorize  it  into  submission.  They 
would  have  no  more  respect  for  Americans  than 
they  have  had  for  Belgians  or  for  French.  Like 
the  wolves  and  the  hyenas,  they  do  these  things 
because  it  is  their  nature  to  do  them.  Do  not 
allow  any  specious  argument  to  lure  you  to  the  side 
of  the  wolf  and  the  hyena. 
Those  who  are  not  with  us  are  against  us. 


XI 

FRANCE:  I9i6l 

HOW  many  times,  Immortal  France, 
Though  men  suppose  you  dead, 
You  lift  above  black  circumstance 
Your  haloed  head. 

Never  more  reverend  than  now, 
When  challenged  at  Verdun, 

Month  after  month,  with  dauntless  brow 
You  face  the  Hun. 

You  smote  him  first  on  Chalons  hill 

And  Catelaunia's  plain 
Ages  ago,  and  still — and  still — 

He  ramps  again. 

But  yet  again  your  sword  shall  smite, 

And  Attila  shall  fall : 
You  save  not  France  alone;  you  fight 

For  us,  for  all ! 


JFrom  the  volume  "For  France,"  Issued  for  the  benefit  of  French  War 
Sufferers.     Published  by  Doubleday,  Page  &  Co.,  New  York,  1917. 

27S 


276  VOLLEYS  FROM  A  NON-COMBATANT 

The  doom  impending  two-score  years, 

Burst  on  you  unprepared: 
Startled,  but  stript  of  doubts  and  fears 

You  greatly  dared. 

For  swift !  as  if  by  miracle 

You  stood  a  chastened  soul, 
Purged  in  desire,  staunch  in  will, 

United,  whole! 

And  all  your  children  from  all  parts 

Rallied  around  your  feet, 
Till  forty  million  Gallic  hearts 

As  one  heart  beat. 

And  then — thj  Eternal  Vision  came 

Transfigured  to  your  eye— 
The  single  duty,  godlike  aim — 

To  win  or  die. 

All  you  had  been  and  all  your  dead 

Rose  up  to  war  for  you : 
Each  of  the  laureled  spectres  said: 

"Mother!  be  true!  " 

You  heard — and  chose!    An  inner  peace 

Irradiates  your  land; 
Stilled  are  the  doubts;  the  discords  cease; 

You  understand. 


FRANCE:  1916  277 

Scorning  the  menaced  doom,  and  chance, 

The  utmost  odds  you  brave; 
Better  that  there  should  be  no  France, 

Than  France  a  slave. 

You  fight  for  us !    Thank  God !  that  we 

Now  battle  by  your  side ! 
Your  sires  once  fought  to  make  us  free, 

And  for  us  died. 

Heroic  France !    I  thank  and  bless ! 

The  record  you  have  set 
Among  the  stars  Time  shall  not  stress 

Nor  man  forget ! 

You  mingle  human  and  divine 

To  save  an  age  undone; 
Marne  and  Verdun  shall  deathless  shine 

With  Marathon. 

< 

Through  you  the  future  is  redeemed, — 

Through  you,  unworldly  grown, 
As  if  in  all  your  children  beamed 
The  soul  of  Joan. 


XII 

LET  FOCH  DECIDE!* 

Let  Foch  decide! 
Let  him  say:    "No, 
Never  surrender  to  a  beaten  foe 
The  safety  of  the  world,  for  which  have  died 
Millions  of  honest  men. 
Beware  the  whimper  of  the  vanquish'd  Hun, 
Beware  the  whining  of  the  homicide — 
William  the  Liar,  who  brags,  and  slays,  and  then 
With  ratlike  squealing  seeks  his  hole  again ! 
Trust  not  the  hazard  of  a  juggler's  pen 
To  keep  what  we  have  won !  ' 

In  Foch  confide ! 

The  silent,  strong,  enduring,  dauntless  man — 
First  in  a  hundred  rights,  trust  him  who  never  ran, 
But  thrice — at  Nancy,  Marne,  and  Ypres — smote 
The  Teuton  legions  and  abased  their  pride. 
Woe  unto  those  who  at  this  fatal  time 
Would  compromise  with  crime, 

1  Boston  Herald,  October  14, 1918. 

378 


LET  FOCH  DECIDE!  279 

t  '• 

And  bandy  cunning  with  the  shameless  Hun ! 

He  stands  on  ruin's  brink; 

Our  victory  is  near:  not  ink, 

But  blood,  but  valour  and  unshaken  will 

Should  be  our  weapons  and  our  skill. 

In  Foch  we  trust ! 

He  writes  no  letters  and  his  speech  is  brief; 
He  scorns  the  subterfuge  of  dust 
Thrown  into  statesmen's  eyes; 
He  will  not  compromise ! 
He  saw  far  off  the  goal, 
And  with  undaunted  soul 
Wins  it,  unboasting,  as  becomes  a  Chief! 
Be  every  reptile  message  of  the  Boche 
Referred  henceforth  to  Foch ! 

WILLIAM  ROSCOE  THAYER. 
Oct.  13,  1918. 


XIII 

PRUSSIA'S  PEWTER  NAPOLEON,  PEWTER  THE 
GREAT— A  STUDY  IN  ALLOYS1 

A  LITTLE  while  ago,  our  part  of  the  world  was 
amused  to  learn  that  a  prize  trophy  given  by 
the  German  Emperor  to  the  winner  of  a  yacht  race 
before  the  war,  and  supposed  to  be  worth  five  thou- 
sand dollars — surely  a  very  modest  sum  for  a  mon- 
arch of  his  munificence — was  sold  and  melted  down 
as  a  contribution  to  the  Red  Cross  Fund.  In- 
stead of  being  of  precious  metal  as  was  supposed 
it  turned  out  to  be  of  pewter,  plated,  and  worth 
only  forty  dollars.  Doubtless  many  other  of  the 
grandiose  benefactions  which  the  Kaiser  lavished 
on  an  unwilling  world  were  also  fakes.  His  statue 
of  Frederick  the  Great,  for  instance,  which  he  in- 
sisted upon  dumping  on  the  United  States — an  act 
at  which  John  Hay,  who  was  then  our  Secretary  of 
State,  groaned — may  not  be  bronze  at  all,  and  the 
semi-barbaric  facsimiles  of  the  mediaeval  art  works 
which  he  presented  to  the  Germanic  Museum  at 
Harvard  might,  if  examined,  be  worth  only  four 

xBoston  Evening  Transcript,  October  19,  1918. 

280 


A  STUDY  IN  ALLOYS  281 

hundred  dollars  instead  of  the  advertised  fifty 
thousand. 

But  I  am  not  concerned  with  these  cheap  and 
vulgar  evidences  of  imperial  meanness.  I  cite 
them  only  as  indications  of  the  Kaiser's  false  and 
braggart  nature.  The  man  who  stoops  to  make  a 
counterfeit  gift  will  not  stop  there.  William  II, 
who  has  always  thought  Americans  very  gullible, 
hoped  to  fool  the  American  yachtsmen  into  admir- 
ing him  for  his  $5,000  trophy.  Now  they  and  the 
world  laugh  at  him  as  a  pewter  monarch. 

Observers  of  Almightiest  Hohenzollern  character 
must  have  suspected  for  years  past  that  there  was  a 
great  deal  of  pewter  in  so  boastful  a  person.  Boast- 
ers and  bullies  don't  ring  true;  there  is  too 
much  pewter  in  them  to  ring  at  all.  We  are  not 
surprised,  therefore,  to  find  that  the  German 
Kaiser  is,  after  all,  only  a  pewter  Napoleon.  As 
a  youth,  he  had  the  ambition  to  surpass  Napoleon 
the  Great,  both  as  a  general  and  as  the  founder 
of  a  world  empire.  Ever  since  he  came  to  the 
throne  thirty  years  ago  he  has  boasted  of  "my 
army,"  "my  soldiers,"  "my  invincibility,"  when 
in  truth  he  inherited  the  army  from  Von  Moltke 
and  other  men  of  real  military  knowledge  and 
achievement.  Every  year  he  held  grand  ma- 
noeuvres, which  were  so  planned  that  they  culmi- 


282  VOLLEYS  FROM  A  NON-COMBATANT 

nated  in  a  tremendous  cavalry  charge,  led  by  the 
Kaiser,  who  of  course  easily  crushed  his  imaginary 
opponents.  But  the  military  system  of  Germany 
was  carefully  worked  out  by  the  General  Staff, 
who  saw  to  every  detail  and  shaped  every  policy. 
He  has  no  more  right  to  the  credit  of  having  pro- 
duced the  German  army  than  the  president  of  a 
steamship  company  would  have  to  claim  that  he 
invented  the  machinery  that  ran  his  ships. 

Now  the  real  Napoleon,  the  sort  of  man  whom 
his  pewter  Prussian  mimic  would  like  the  world  to 
take  him  for,  rose  from  the  ranks,  learned  how  to 
control  and  lead  men  himself,  invented  new  forms 
of  strategy,  elaborated  a  military  system,  and  was 
himself  the  master  to  whom  the  members  of  his 
staff  had  to  go  to  school.  It  is  very  different,  being 
born  a  monarch  with  a  multitude  of  obsequious 
lackeys  dressed  out  as  cabinet  ministers,  courtiers, 
professors,  parsons,  malefactors  of  great  wealth 
and  other  sycophants,  having  from  the  State  all 
the  money  you  can  spend,  as  well  as  a  large  army 
for  a  plaything,  from  being  born  a  poor  and  unbe- 
friended  Corsican  boy,  and  making  your  way  to 
the  top  during  the  most  tremendous  of  revolutions, 
against  endless  difficulties  and  voracious  ambitions. 
What  Napoleon  achieved,  he  did  himself.  Cir- 
cumstances favoured  him,  if  you  will,  but  the  sign 


A  STUDY  IN  ALLOYS'  283 

of  the  great  man  is  to  know  when  circumstances 
are  favourable,  and  to  make  them  seem  to  do  his 
bidding. 

In  fairness,  we  admit  that  such  an  origin  and 
bringing  up  as  William  II  had  would  be  detrimental 
to  the  development  of  any  great  man,  above  all  to 
a  great  commander.  Hannibal,  Caesar,  and  Na- 
poleon in  their  youth  were  not  warped  by  the  pe- 
dantries, barbaric  traditions,  insufferable  adulations 
and  incentives  to  megalomania  which  fed  the  young 
vulture  in  the  Hohenzollern  nest.  At  the  age 
when  the  adolescent  William  was  playing  the  Krieg-^ 
spiel,  and  dreaming  of  being  another  and  greater 
Napoleon,  the  real  Napoleon  was  leading  a  desper- 
ate charge  over  the  bridge  of  Lodi,  risking  his  own 
life  and  the  fortunes  of  his  country  at  Arcola,  and 
smashing  the  bespangled  marshals  of  Austria 
wherever  he  met  them. 

Neither  then  in  his  third  decade  nor  at  any  time 
since,  so  far  as  the  records  show,  has  the  pewter 
Napoleon  of  Prussia  come  within  range  of  bullet  or 
shell.  For  fifty  months  Europe  has  witnessed  the 
most  appalling  war  in  all  her  history,  and  during 
every  month  over  a  hundred  thousand  soldiers 
have  been  killed  in  this  war,  but  William  the 
Pewter  has  remained  unscathed.  This  is  a  cynical 
world,  or  it  would  not  ask  why  he  has  escaped. 


284  VOLLEYS  FROM  A  NON-COMBATANT 

How  could  it  come  about  that  a  monarch  who, 
from  boyhood  up,  had  bellowed  praises  of  war; 
who  had  created  a  synod  of  biologists  and  Lutheran 
pastors  and  atheists  to  prove  that  war  was  the 
natural  state  of  man,  and  the  only  condition  worthy 
of  high  men  and  low  men  alike;  by  what  evil  fate 
has  it  happened  that  this  monarch  has  been  unable 
during  fifty  months  to  get  into  the  most  multitudi- 
nous of  all  wars,  one  which,  moreover,  he  himself 
caused  and  pretends  to  have  directed?  Every 
day,  during  all  this  time,  hundreds  of  tons  of  muni- 
tions have  been  fired  at  his  armies,  but  not  a  single 
bullet,  not  the  smallest  splinter  of  shrapnel  has 
come  near  him.  Was  ever  a  man  so  cheated  in 
his  fondest  desire?  Every  day  has  witnessed  a 
thousand  heroisms,  and  he,  who  should  be,  poten- 
tially, the  most  radiant  German  hero  of  them  all 
has  been  unable  to  reach  the  terrain  where  battle- 
heroes  find  immortality. 

With  a  feeling  of  chagrin  the  world  concludes 
that  the  pewter  in  him  has  made  the  bumptious 
Kaiser  a  coward,  and  the  world,  though  cynical, 
is  really  fair.  It  says  to  the  Shade  of  Napoleon 
the  Great:  "Being  Napoleon,  you  naturally 
risked  your  life  on  fifty  battlefields,"  and  to  Wil- 
liam II  it  says:  "Being  pewter,  you  have  dili- 
gently kept  out  of  harm's  way,  ever  since  as  a  little 


A  STUDY  IN  ALLOYS  285 

boy  you  toddled  up  and  down  Unter  den  Linden 
with  your  bodyguard  of  nurses  and  lackeys.  Dur- 
ing the  war,  we  hear  of  your  rushing  from  the 
French  front  to  the  Baltic  in  your  limousine,  sur- 
rounded by  other  camouflaged  automobiles,  with 
your  motor  kitchen,  your  sleeping  cabinet,  your 
truck  of  fine  wines,  and  all  the  paraphernalia 
which  a  monarch  kept  in  cotton  should  have.  The 
newspapers  give  us  snapshots  of  you  preparing 
for  your  triumphal  entry  into  the  foreign  capitals 
which  you  have  temporarily  taken.  We  see  you 
in  your  innumerable  uniforms — these  alone  must 
require  four  or  five  extra  camions  and  a  squad  of 
chamberlains — reviewing  troops  in  Sofia  or  Warsaw 
or  wherever  you  run  across  them,  and  a  photog- 
rapher is  at  hand.  How  many  imperial  kisses  you 
have  bestowed  on  the  Sultan,  or  the  Czar  of  Bul- 
garia (Ferdinand,  father  of  all  the  Shylocks),  on 
the  old  Emperor  of  Austria  and  on  the  new !  What 
an  eye  you  have  for  spectacular  effects — provided 
that  the  kodakers  are  near!" 

If  you  think  the  world  cynical,  I  reply:  "You 
are  mistaken.  The  world  simply  judges  men  by 
their  positions  and  professions.  As  it  expects  a 
parson  to  lead  a  moral  life,  so  it  expects  a  supreme 
military  commander  to  know  at  least  how  powder 
smells,  and  the  difference  in  sound  between  the 


286  VOLLEYS  FROM  A  NON-COMBATANT 

whizzing  of  bullets  and  the  explosive  shrieks  of 
shrapnel.  When  it  discovers  that  you  are  pewter, 
it  proclaims  the  fact  out  of  its  stern  love  of  truth." 

I  hear  the  Kaiser's  apologists  protest  that  he  is 
really  a  man  of  unmatched  courage.  Unmatched  ? 
Yes,  but  that  depends  upon  whom  you  match  him 
with.  You  recall,  doubtless,  that  in  the  early  days 
of  the  war  he  took  up  his  position  on  a  high  hill, 
out  of  range  of  the  artillery,  and  waited  throughout 
a  long  summer  day,  to  see  his  superabundant  troops 
destroy  the  French  near  Nancy.  The  victory 
which  he  awaited  never  came.  Instead  of  that, 
the  German  army  ran  before  the  French,  and  the 
pewter  Kaiser  had  himself  run  away  long  before 
his  fleeing  troops  could  catch  up  with  him.  He  has 
repeated  this  martial  gesture,  this  expression  of 
courage  which  refused  to  be  corked  up,  several 
times  since,  but  always  with  the  same  result;  for 
always  when  he  has  counted  upon  witnessing  the 
utter  rout  of  the  British  or  the  French,  he  has  had 
to  take  to  his  heels  in  order  to  escape  being  cap- 
tured by  them. 

If  the  Germans  possessed  the  sense  of  accuracy 
which  belongs  to  the  coloured  brethren  in  our 
South,  they  would  call  William  "a  first-class  Jonah 
man,"  and  regard  his  presence  in  military  affairs 
or  at  a  battle  as  a  hoodoo.  Ah!  but  his  troops 


A  STUDY  IN  ALLOYS  287 

are  Germans;  what  more  can  you  say?  Every 
year,  on  January  27,  the  Kaiser's  birthday,  there  has 
been  some  particular  movement  by  his  armies  in 
order  that  the  news  of  an  irrelevant  and  unimport- 
ant victory  might  give  him  a  better  appetite  for 
his  food.  Perhaps  this  movement  cost  5,000  or 
10,000  or  15,000  German  lives.  No  matter  being 
Germans,  the  soldiers  were  unquestionably  glad  to 
die,  and  their  wives  and  mothers  at  home  were  glad 
to  have  them  die,  if  by  so  doing  they  stimulated 
William  the  Pewter  into  drinking  a  glass  more  of 
champagne  than  usual  on  his  birthday. 

I  know  that  the  Kaiser's  apologists  will  urge  in 
his  defence  that  the  leaders  of  armies  are  no  longer 
expected  to  head  their  troops  in  battle,  or  even 
to  be  on  the  battlefield  itself.  The  days  are  past 
when  the  White  Plume  of  Navarre  led  Henry  IV's 
soldiers  to  victory  at  Ivry,  or  when  Napoleon  Buon- 
aparte dashed  through  the  hail  of  bullets  at  Lodi, 
or  when  U.  S.  Grant  sat  like  a  statue  on  his  horse, 
unperturbed  amid  the  dangers  and  carnage  of  the 
Wilderness;  a  Generalissimo  now  has  his  head- 
quarters perhaps  twenty  miles,  or  it  may  be  thirty, 
from  the  actual  front  where  men  are  dying  in 
swarms,  and  the  telephone  and  telegraph  bring 
him  the  news,  moment  by  moment,  from  which  he 
forms  his  quick  decisions  and  sends  them  back  to 


288   VOLLEYS  FROM  A  NON-COMBATANT 

his  officers  in  the  desperate  fight.  Still  we  feel, 
and  I  believe  that  mankind  will  always  feel,  that 
the  head  of  a  great  army  ought  sometimes  to  show 
that  he  has  courage.  It  is  a  little  suspicious  for 
him  to  screen  himself  behind  the  plea  that  his  life 
is  so  valuable  that  duty  requires  him  not  to  risk  it. 

What  we  surmise  about  William  the  Pewter  is 
that  he  has  never  in  youth  or  age  come  within 
gunshot  of  risk.  His  Hohenzollern  forerunners 
were  not  always  thus.  Leaving  out  the  Barbarians 
whose  imaginary  portraits  he  has  caused  to  be 
sculptured  in  all  their  pristine  savagery  and  ugli- 
ness on  the  monuments  of  the  Sieges  Allee,  Berlin, 
we  find  that  Frederick  the  Great  was  more  than 
once  in  the  storm-centre  of  his  battles  and  that 
William  I,  the  present  Kaiser's  grandfather,  rode 
so  near  the  bullets  at  Sadowa  that  Bismarck,  who 
accompanied  him,  felt  obliged  to  give  the  king's 
mare  so  hard  a  kick  in  the  flank  that  she  dashed 
with  her  rider  beyond  reach  of  the  danger. 

William  the  Pewter's  habit  of  taking  up  a  safe 
position  in  the  hope  of  seeing  his  Teutonic  hordes 
win  a  great  victory  reminds  one  of  the  description 
of  his  hunting  in  the  days  of  peace.  Then  he 
used  to  sit  in  his  hunting  box — the  precaution 
having  been  taken  to  build  it  so  high  that  no 
animals  could  leap  into  it  and  do  him  harm — and 


A  STUDY  IN  ALLOYS  289 

while  his  officers  handed  him  loaded  guns  as  fast 
as  he  needed  them,  he  would  shoot  the  wild  boars, 
which  his  gamekeepers  drove  in  front  of  his  box. 
Splendid  sport,  wasn't  it?  How  his  Imperial 
Majesty  must  have  thrilled  with  courage,  and 
plumed  himself  on  being  greater  than  Nimrod,  as 
one  after  another  of  the  wild  boars  fell  dead  before 
his  box !  Perhaps  the  sight  of  them  suggested  to 
him  the  pretty  way  of  wearing  his  moustaches 
twirled  up  like  the  tusks  of  the  wild  boars  which  he 
boasted  of  killing.  So  his  docile  German  troops 
were  driven  into  battle  at  Nancy,  at  Ypres,  and  else- 
where, for  his  exultation,  but  the  British  and  the 
French — not  the  Pewter  Kaiser — did  the  slaying. 
I  have  been  more  or  less  skeptical  of  the  pos- 
sibility of  tracing  the  processes  of  heredity  in 
human  history,  but  the  record  of  the  Hohenzollern 
has  converted  me.  For  generation  after  genera- 
tion mendacity  and  piracy  have  been  family 
characteristics  in  them  too  marked  and  too  con- 
stant to  be  ignored.  When  the  Robber  Barons 
of  the  southern  mountains  became  the  Lords  of 
Brandenburg  and  set  out  to  expand  Prussia,  they 
found  the  same  traits,  piracy  and  mendacity, 
among  the  racial  nondescripts,  including  the 
Tartar  strains,  who  dwelt  in  what  is  now  Eastern 
Prussia  and  Pomerania.  William  the  Pewter 


290  VOLLEYS  FROM  A  NON-COMBATANT 

was  one  of  them — they  knew  it,  and  he  knew  it; 
and  he  illustrated  the  fact  of  heredity  through  a 
line  many  generations  in  length. 

To  his  six  sons  he  transmitted  the  inheritance 
for  ferocity  and  falsehood;  but  he  transmitted 
also  his  personal  aversion  to  danger.  That  is  the 
beauty  of  the  law  of  heredity;  when  some  stub- 
bornly different  trait  crops  up,  you  account  for  it 
as  a  variation  from  type,  due  to  the  interposition 
of  a  grandparent  or  of  a  forgotten  great  uncle.  In 
this  case  the  six  imperial  princes  evidently  derive 
their  somewhat  exaggerated  instinct  of  self-pres- 
ervation from  their  august  but  pewter  father. 
It  seems  to  be  the  law  that  lower  traits  are  trans- 
mitted much  more  easily  than  are  higher. 

The  meaning  of  all  this  is  that  although  the 
Kaiser's  six  sons  have  been  nominally  in  the  war 
during  fifty  months,  not  one  of  them  has  received 
a  scratch.  A  scratch?  So  far  as  we  know,  none 
of  them  has  been  within  reach  of  receiving  one 
from  an  Allied  missile  during  all  this  period.  They 
have  all  held  high  military  titles,  and  to  one  of 
them  at  least,  to  the  Crown  Prince — whose  weasel 
features  are  known  throughout  the  world,  and 
have  only  to  be  seen  in  order  to  be  admired — has 
been  entrusted  the  command  of  the  principal  Ger- 
man army.  Crown  Prince  Weasel,  it  will  be  re- 


A  STUDY  IN  ALLOYS  291 

membered,  was  the  much-advertised  leader  of 
the  German  War  Party  before  the  war.  He 
summed  up  the  martial  instincts  of  the  Prussians; 
and  just  as  in  the  boar's-tusk  moustaches  of  the 
Pewter  Kaiser  the  discerning  could  detect  the 
ferocious  and  piratical  instincts  of  the  race,  so  in 
the  Crown  Prince's  weasel  features,  its  slyness, 
deceit,  and  shamelessness  were  apparent. 

Let  us  not  forget  that  it  was  he  who  applauded 
every  example  of  military  truculence  in  the  days 
of  peace.  When  a  cowardly  Prussian  lieutenant 
caused  two  of  his  soldiers  to  seize  and  hold  the 
crippled  shoemaker  of  Saverne,  while  he  drew  his 
sword  and  slashed  him,  it  was  the  Crown  Prince 
who  sent  him  an  enthusiastic  telegram  and  thanked 
him  for  upholding  Prussian  valour !  Among  what 
savage  people,  were  they  Bantus  or  Basutos, 
would  such  cowardly  action  be  called  valour,  or 
would  such  a  lieutenant  or  such  a  crown  prince  be 
tolerated  ?  But  the  Germans  applaud  and  practise 
infamies  which  have  never  entered  the  minds  of 
the  wickedest  savages. 

When  the  Kaiser  went  on  his  yachting  trip  after 
the  secret  meeting  of  the  Pirates  of  Potsdam,  on 
July  5,  1914,  he  left  the  Crown  Prince  in  control, 
thereby  hoping  to  create  the  impression  that  he 
himself  had  nothing  to  do  in  bringing  on  the  war. 


292  VOLLEYS  FROM  A  NON-COMBATANT 

At  any  rate,  during  the  three  weeks  which  followed 
the  Imperial  Weasel  acted  so  efficiently  that  when 
the  Kaiser  returned  and  entered  the  council 
chamber  on  July  27  his  son  said  to  him:  "Father, 
you  come  too  late."  This  I  had  from  the  late 
ex-Ambassador  George  von  L.  Meyer,  who  was  in 
Berlin  a  few  days  after  the  event,  and  was  given 
this  and  other  details  of  the  meeting  by  his  friend 
Von  Jagow,  the  German  Foreign  Secretary,  who 
was  present. 

Europe  having  been  plunged  into  war  by  this 
piratical  gang,  every  measure  was  taken  to  "stage" 
the  Crown  Prince  in  a  most  conspicuous  part.  He 
was  given  command  of  a  great  army;  he,  too,  had 
his  limousines  and  his  kitchens  and  his  ambulant 
wine  cellar,  and  his  obsequious  retinue,  not  all  of 
which,  according  to  the  gossips,  was  composed  of 
males.  But  the  Kaiser  felt  that  nothing  must  be 
left  undone  in  order  to  make  the  Crown  Prince 
emerge  from  the  war  as  its  military  hero.  The 
sequence,  if  not  the  safety,  of  the  Hohenzollern 
Dynasty  required  that.  How  would  it  look  when 
peace  came  if  Hindenburg  or  Falkenhayn  or 
Mackensen  were  the  hero  of  the  German  people 
instead  of  the  coddled  Crown  Prince  Weasel? 

And  indeed  the  likelihood  that  this  would  happen 
increased  as  the  war  went  on.  Hindenburg  was 


A  STUDY  IN  ALLOYS  293 

the  idol  of  1914,  and  the  Germans  expressed  their 
admiration  by  driving  nails  into  a  wooden  effigy 
of  him — a  peculiarly  delicate,  cultured,  and  German 
form  of  hero-worship.  In  1915,  when  Falken- 
hayn  and  Mackensen  also  pushed  to  the  fore, 
the  German  General  Staff,  the  Kaiser,  and  the 
Crown  Prince  believed  that  the  time  had  now  come 
for  crushing  France,  which  they  had  failed  to  do 
earlier,  and  it  was  now  or  never  for  the  Crown 
Prince.  So  they  prepared  and  let  loose  early 
in  1916  their  terrific  attack  on  Verdun,  and  they 
kept  it  up  for  six  months,  until  five  hundred 
thousand  Germans  had  been  destroyed.  Then 
they  were  obliged  to  stop  in  order  to  parry  the 
advance  of  the  English  in  the  north. 

It  was  doubtless  a  supreme  pleasure  to  the 
mothers  and  wives  and  sweethearts  of  the  half 
million  Germans  killed  at  Verdun  to  know  that 
their  dear  ones  were  sacrificed  in  order  to  give  the 
Crown  Prince  a  military  reputation  which  he 
never  deserved  and  could  not  win,  and  to  solidify 
the  Hohenzollern  Dynasty.  The  gladiators  of 
ancient  Rome  who  were  forced  to  fight  in  the 
Colosseum  and  fell,  "butchered  to  make  a  Roman 
holiday,"  were  foreign  captives,  presumably 
enemies,  but  the  myriads  of  Germans  who  were 
butchered  to  make  a  holiday  for  the  Crown  Prince 


294  VOLLEYS  FROM  A  NON-COMBATANT 

were  natives  of  the  Germanic  stock;  and  yet  so 
servile  is  their  race,  that  their  families  were  proud 
to  have  them  butchered  at  the  pleasure  of  the 
Crown  Prince  Weasel.  Truly,  the  psychology  of 
the  Teutons  could  be  fathomed  only  by  the  Keeper 
of  a  madhouse. 

The  Crown  Prince  was  blessed  with  five  brothers, 
all  of  whom  had  been  brought  up  to  regard  war 
as  their  normal  occupation,  and  had  looked  for- 
ward to  this  war  which  would  usher  in  "The  Day" 
they  all  fervently  desired  as  their  great  oppor- 
tunity. They  were  given  important  commissions 
and  some  of  them  were  to  serve  as  rulers  of  the 
various  princedoms  which  the  Kaiser  wished  to 
carve  out  of  his  conquests  in  Russia  and  the 
Balkans.  But  fifty  months  have  elapsed,  during 
which,  according  to  the  chroniclers,  a  considerable 
war  has  been  fought,  but  not  one  of  the  five  princes 
has  been  gazetted  in  any  battle,  has  received  any 
wound,  or  in  fact  has  been  reported  within  reach 
of  any  bullet.  To  be  strictly  just,  I  must  add 
that  the  youngest,  on  hearing  the  rumble  of  a 
cannonade  very  far  off,  had  heart  disease,  and  was 
hurried  back  to  his  mother  to  recuperate.  So  far 
as  appears  he  has  not  again  risked  palpitations  in 
the  four  years  which  have  intervened. 

Now  to  the  student  of  human  nature,  pcwterness 


A  STUDY  IN  ALLOYS  295 

is  most  interesting  because  it  presents  such  un- 
looked-for surprises.  Here  were  seven  grown-up 
men,  inured  from  childhood  to  military  training, 
obsessed  by  the  hideous  doctrine  that  war  was  the 
normal  employment  of  individuals  and  nations, 
convinced  that  only  by  victory  in  battle  could 
monarchs,  especially  German  monarchs,  maintain 
control  and  prestige  over  their  people.  For  thirty 
years  had  these  men  prepared  for  war,  adopting 
every  invention,  no  matter  how  devilish,  which 
might  improve  their  weapons,  selecting  a  general 
staff  which  could  not  presumably  be  equalled, 
resorting  to  lies  and  diplomatic  chicane  in  order 
to  lull  their  enemies  into  a  fatal  tranquillity,  even 
casting  medals  before  war  was  declared  to  celebrate 
their  entry  into  Paris  and  other  places — and  yet, 
when  war  came,  they  kept  themselves  scrupulously 
out  of  danger,  nor  has  any  one  of  them,  so  far  as 
we  know,  come  within  gunshot  of  the  enemy  during 
these  fifty  months.  Can  you  imagine  a  prize- 
fighter after  a  long  training  to  fit  him  to  fight  a 
battle  for  the  championship  of  the  world,  skulking 
away  when  the  day  of  battle  came  ? 

This  is  what  I  mean  when  I  suggest  that  there 
is  a  pewter  alloy  in  the  decadent  Hohenzollerns 
of  our  time.  They  want  the  victory,  they  crave 
the  personal  and  dynastic  glory,  but  they  don't 


296  VOLLEYS  FROM  A  NON-COMBATANT 

want  to  run  any  personal  risk.  The  time  seems 
near  at  hand  when  the  Kaiser  and  Crown  Prince 
Weasel,  and  perhaps  also  the  younger  members 
of  this  monster  brood,  will  have  opportunity  to 
study  the  life  of  Napoleon  the  Great  and  to  learn 
how  widely  he  differed  in  intellect  and  spirit  from 
his  pewter  Prussian  mimic.  They  will  see  also 
that  their  German  generals  fell  far  behind  Na- 
poleon's in  respect  to  personal  valour.  Every 
one  of  Napoleon's  marshals  rose  by  personal  valour 
on  the  field.  Some  of  them  were  killed  in  action, 
and  Ney,  the  bravest  of  the  brave,  led  the  final 
charge  at  Waterloo,  his  final  battle.  The  German 
marshals  and  generals  never  lead  their  men  because 
it  is  said  they  are  afraid  of  being  shot  from  behind 
by  their  own  troops!  It  is  also  safer — for  other 
reasons. 

Americans,  who  of  course  know  nothing  of 
warfare,  have  already  commented,  not  always 
perhaps  with  proper  deference,  on  the  immunity 
which  the  seven  pewter  Hohenzollerns  have  enjoyed 
during  this  Atrocious  War;  they  have  contrasted 
it  with  the  fate  of  the  four  Roosevelt  boys,  who 
went  into  the  struggle  without  high  commissions 
and  without  limousines,  camp  kitchens,  and  retinues 
to  make  life  in  the  field  pleasant  for  them.  Of 
these  four,  in  less  than  a  year  one  has  been  killed, 


A  STUDY  IN  ALLOYS  297 

one  has  been  so  shattered  by  wounds  that  he  is 
likely  to  be  crippled  for  life,  and  a  third  has  been 
less  seriously  wounded.  Their  father,  Colonel 
Roosevelt,  wished  to  go  to  the  front  before  a  single 

American  battalion  had  crossed  the  ocean,  but  he 

'        i 

was  refused  a  commission  for  reasons  which 
the  public  does  not  even  now  understand.  If 
he  had  gone,  no  Americans  believe  that,  like  the 
Kaiser,  he  would  have  kept  himself  carefully  in 
the  hinterland  of  danger. 

Times  have  so  changed  that  the  conduct  of  the 
far-flung,  month-long  contests  of  to-day  differs 
from  that  of  the  battles  of  our  Civil  War,  or  even 
of  the  War  of  1870.  But  we  Americans  remember 
-Albert  Sidney  Johnston,  Stonewall  Jackson,  Rey- 
nolds, and  other  generals  North  and  South,  who 
fell  in  the  midst  of  battle,  and  we  honour  them  all 
the  more  for  it.  Nor  can  we  think  that  Robert 
E.  Lee  or  Beauregard,  any  more  than  Grant  or 
Sherman  or  Sheridan,  would  have  shrunk  from 
the  post  of  greatest  danger  had  duty  called  him 
there. 

Systems  of  warfare  will  vary  from  age  to  age, 
until  possibly  General  Staffs  may  direct  operations 
from  afar,  as  international  chess  players  now  con- 
duct their  games  by  cable.  But  courage  will 
never  change — never  go  out  of  fashion.  It  is 


298  VOLLEYS  FROM  A  NON-COMBATANT 

always  new.  It  requires  no  apologies,  no  explana- 
tion. We  Americans  should  feel  proud  and  grate- 
ful that  as  a  matter  of  course  all  our  commanders, 
from  Washington  down,  have  displayed  it. 

Truly  war,  especially  war  as  waged  by  the 
Teutons,  is  a  strange,  stupid,  incongruous,  and 
hellish  affair. 

But  what  other  War-Lord  can  compare  with 
Pewter  the  Great  ? 


XIV 

ITALY  AND  THE  ADRIATIC:  PEACE  TERMS1 

THE  peace  terms  which  will  satisfy  Italy,  so 
far  as  she  herself  is  concerned,  have  already 
been  much  discussed.  I  cannot  pretend  to  have 
any  information  as  to  what  the  Italian  Envoys, 
who  speak  for  her  at  the  Peace  Congress,  will 
demand.  At  different  times  since  the  war  began 
various  rumours  have  floated  about  as  to  Italy's 
stipulations.  At  the  beginning  these  rumours 
were  often  cruel  because  the  world  misjudged 
Italy,  and  the  Germans  did  all  they  could  to  spread 
the  impression  that  she  was  a  mercenary,  a  faith- 
less mercenary,  who  was  waiting  to  sell  her  help 
in  the  war  to  the  highest  bidder. 

The  truth  is,  that  in  August,  1914,  Italy  had 
neither  sufficient  men,  money,  nor  munitions  to 
go  into  the  war.  The  coils  which  the  Germans 
had  wound  round  her  commerce  and  industry 
so  strangled  her  that  it  took  more  than  six  months 
for  her  to  shake  herself  free.  But  from  the  start, 
she  denounced  the  Triple  Alliance  in  which  she 

World's  Work,  December,  1918. 

299 


300  VOLLEYS  FROM  A  NON-COMBATANT 

was  a  partner  with  Germany  and  Austria,  and 
she  did  inestimable  service  to  the  Allies  and  to 
civilization  by  informing  the  French  Minister 
that  she  would  not  uphold  the  Teutons.  This 
action  released  several  army  corps  of  French  troops 
that  would  otherwise  have  had  to  guard  the  Franco- 
Italian  frontier. 

During  the  winter  and  early  spring  of  1914 
and  '15  Rome  was  beset  by  agents  of  the  Allies 
and  of  the  Entente  who  did  their  utmost  to  secure 
her  support.  Prince  Biilow,  whose  wife  was, 
Italian,  and  who  was  an  old  resident  of  Rome, 
set  up  his  quarters  there  and,  with  effrontery 
characteristically  Prussian,  waged  an  open  cam- 
paign of  corruption  in  behalf  of  the  German  alli- 
ance. When,  at  last,  he  found  that  even  he  could 
neither  persuade  nor  buy  Italy  to  align  her  army 
with  the  German,  he  did  his  utmost  to  keep  her 
neutral  and  so  to  prevent  her  from  joining  forces 
with  the  Allies.  Among  other  things,  he  promised 
that  she  should  have  the  Trentino  and  Trieste. 
These  belonged  to  Austria,  but  he  quite  naturally 
disposed  of  Austrian  territory,  because  he  knew 
that  Austria  was  Germany's  vassal.  What  would 
happen  if  Austria  refused  to  ratify  the  gifts  which 
German  Biilow  made  in  her  name  was  not  put 
to  the  test,  for  Italy  could  not  be  seduced.  In 


ITALY  AND  THE  ADRIATIC  301 

May,  1915,  she  declared  war  on  Austria  and  in 
August,  1916,  on  Germany,  having  so  far  read- 
justed the  control  of  her  industries  and  commerce 
that  she  could  get  along  without  German  super- 
intendents and  foremen. 

Thus  Italy's  entry  into  the  war  was  voluntary; 
she  might  have  remained  neutral  and  so  have 
saved  herself  the  expense  and  hardships  and  hor- 
rors. But,  like  the  United  States,  she  went  in  of 
her  own  free  will  and  with  great  peril  confronting 
her. 

I  do  not  know  that  she  asked  any  exorbitant 
terms  from  the  Allies  for  her  cooperation.  Both 
England  and  France,  I  believe,  supplied  her  with 
some  money  by  loans  which  probably  went  to 
pay  for  the  war  material  which  she  bought  in 
those  countries.  It  was  taken  for  granted  that 
in  case  the  war  ended  favourably  to  the  Allies 
Italia  Irredenta  would  go  to  Italy.  The  phrase 
"Unredeemed  Italy"  is  itself  somewhat  vague, 
because  the  strict  constructionists  claim  that 
Nice  and  Savoy  which  were  ceded  to  France  in 
1860,  and  that  the  Swiss  Canton  of  Ticino  are 
to  be  redeemed,  either  because  they  had  been  parts 
of  Italy  or  were  inhabited  by  Italians,  and  should 
be  restored  to  their  mother  country.  As  com- 
monly used,  however,  "Italia  Irredenta"  means 


302  VOLLEYS  FROM  A  NON-COMBATANT 

the  Italian  regions  in  southern  Austria,  in  Istria, 
and  along  the  eastern  coast  of  the  Adriatic. 

The  most  eager  among  the  patriots  insisted  that 
all  the  Dalmatian  coast  should  be  included,  because 
that,  too,  like  Istria,  had  once  belonged  to  the 
Venetian  Republic.  Everywhere,  in  the  towns 
and  islands  of  that  coast,  one  comes  upon  wit- 
nesses to  the  former  sovereignty  of  Venice,  and  a 
dialect  of  the  Italian  language  still  persists  there. 
But  the  Venetian  sway  formerly  extended  over  much 
of  Greece  also  and,  as  you  drive  to-day  through  the 
city  gate  of  Nauplia  you  see  on  the  fortress  wall 
the  Lion  of  St.  Mark.  Accordingly,  one  of  the 
first  points  to  be  settled  in  laying  down  Italy's  peace 
terms  must  be  how  far  her  remote  ownership  of 
lands  on  the  eastern  Adriatic  ought  to  be  considered. 

For  what  should  be  the  principles  for  the  Peace 
Congress  to  aim  at?  First,  Justice;  second, 
Liberty;  third,  recognition  of  the  ability  of  each 
state,  whether  large  or  small,  to  determine  its  own 
destiny,  to  the  fullest  extent  compatible  with  the 
peace,  prosperity,  and  freedom  of  all.  The  mere 
fact,  therefore,  that  the  Venetians  had  once  held 
Spalato  and  Zara  and  the  Peloponnese,  and  that 
as  Venice,  being  part  of  the  present  Kingdom  of 
Italy,  automatically  gave  over  to  Italy  all  her 
inherited  rights,  ought  not  to  be  the  prime  consid- 


ITALY  AND  THE  ADRIATIC  303 

eration  in  deciding  the  fate  of  the  Dalmatian 
Coast.  Venice  once  owned  Constantinople,  but 
no  one  would  dream  of  asserting  that  that  remote 
ownership  gives  Italy  a  claim  on  Constantinople. 
So  France  once  owned  the  Province  of  Quebec, 
but  it  certainly  would  no  more  conduce  to  peace 
and  justice  to  restore  Quebec  to  France  than  it 
would  for  us  to  restore  Florida  to  Spain,  or  New 
York  City  to  the  Dutch. 

Italy  needs  first  of  all  geographical  safety. 
Her  northern  frontier,  as  drawn  for  her  by  Bis- 
marck and  the  Austrians  after  the  War  of  1866, 
leaves  her  dangerously  unprotected  on  the  side  of 
Austria.  Toward  France,  on  the  west,  the  Alps 
form  a  sufficient  covering,  and  they  give  her  an 
almost  impassable  protection  all  along  the  Swiss 
frontier.  Indeed,  unless  the  Swiss  were  in  league 
with  some  much  more  powerful  enemy  on  the  north 
they  could  scarcely  push  their  way  into  Italy  at  all, 
but  it  is  against  Austria  that  the  Italians  really 
need  a  better  boundary.  The  present  line  which 
dates,  as  I  have  just  said,  from  1866,  runs  so  as  to 
afford  Austria  a  comparatively  easy  access  into 
Italy  through  several  of  the  Alpine  valleys  on  the 
north,  and  by  way  of  the  Julian  Alps  on  the  east. 

Now  as  every  man  is  entitled  to  have  a  door 
to  his  house  which  he  can  lock,  so  each  country 


304  VOLLEYS  FROM  A  NON-COMBATANT 

should  have,  so  far  as  geography  permits,  proper 
frontiers  to  safeguard  it  from  aggression. 

What  geography  can  do  for  a  nation  we  see  in 
the  case  of  Germany,  which  has  owed  more  to  her 
geographical  position  than  to  her  professors  and 
her  General  Staff.  Owing  to  the  ease  with  which 
Austria  could  invade  Italy,  Italy  has  been  forced 
during  the  past  fifty  years  to  strengthen  her  line 
as  well  as  she  could  by  fortifications,  and  to  keep  a 
larger  force  than  she  would  have  kept  otherwise 
under  arms,  to  guard  her  forts.  The  Peace  Con- 
gress ought  to  take  care  in  readjusting  the  map, 
to  see  to  it  that  such  reason  as  this  for  main- 
taining an  army  shall  have  no  warrant;  for  I  be- 
lieve that  one  of  the  surest  ways  to  establish  a 
durable  peace  will  be  to  reduce  armies  to  the  small- 
est size  feasible.  The  obvious  work,  therefore, 
will  be  to  draw  Italy's  boundaries  with  Austria 
so  that  the  Italians  may  feel  far  more  safe  than 
they  do  now.  The  topography  of  the  Carnic 
Alps  is  such  that  the  valleys  that  run  south 
give  the  Austrians  an  easy  approach  into  Italy, 
but  the  Italians  cannot  use  these  same  valleys  for 
pouncing  upon  Austria;  because  the  ridges  of 
the  high  Alps  have  to  be  crossed  before  you  can  at- 
tack Austria  from  the  south. 

But    there    are    considerations    more   pressing 


ITALY  AND  THE  ADRIATIC  305 

even  than  those  of  geography.  Politics,  including 
international  relations,  has  to  be  taken  into 
account;  so  also  sentiment,  intangible  and  illusive, 
but  very  real  and  persistent,  and  often  the  mighti- 
est of  all  the  forces  which  sway  a  people.  Italia 
Irredenta  cries  aloud,  just  as  geography  does,  for 
the  rectification  of  the  Italo-Austrian  frontier. 
"Unredeemed  Italy"  consists  of  those  communi- 
ties which  are  Italian  in  race,  speech,  and  tradition 
and  above  all  in  sentiment  and  desires.  We  must 
never  make  light  of  patriotism,  much  less  despise 
it  in  a  tribe  or  nation,  no  matter  how  insignificant 
it  may  appear.  Patriotism,  like  the  atmosphere, 
may  be  compressed  and  compressed,  but  sooner 
or  later  when  the  burden  becomes  intolerable  it 
explodes.  The  people  of  the  Trentino  and  of 
Trieste  are  largely  Italian  by  origin;  they  speak 
Itatlian  and  they  want  to  join  their  lot  with  that 
of  Italy.  They  regard  themselves  as  under  for- 
eign domination.  It  will  not  do  to  say  that  his- 
torically they  have  never  belonged  to  the  King- 
dom of  Italy,  because  this  has  never  existed,  in 
its  modern  form  at  least,  until  fifty  years  ago.  In 
their  case,  as  in  many  others,  the  rigid  historical 
argument  will  not  apply.  The  only  cogent  fact 
is  that  they  feel  Italian,  and  wish  to  unite  with 
their  brother  Italians. 


3o6  VOLLEYS  FROM  A  NON-COMBATANT 

The  reasons  for  such  a  uniting  may  appear  to 
foreigners  insufficient,  but  it  is  the  people  of  the 
Trentino  and  Trieste  who  must  judge.  As  Mas- 
simo d'Azeglio  remarked  nearly  eighty  years  ago— 
when  the  inhabitants  of  the  Romagna  rose  in 
insurrection  against  their  Papal  tyrants — an  out- 
sider has  no  right  to  retort:  "'You  can!'  when 
a  suffering  people  cries  out,  'I  can  bear  no  more.' ' 

There  is  no  doubt  that  the  Istrians  and  Tren- 
tines  are  in  great  part  Italian.  Slavic  and  Teu- 
tonic strains  are  sprinkled  among  them,  but  the 
racial  basis  is  Italic,  and  it  remains  Italic,  in  spite 
of  all  the  Austrian  efforts  to  exterminate  it,  for 
when  the  Irredentists  some  forty  years  ago  began 
to  clamour  for  freedom  and  for  union  with  Italy, 
Austria  adopted  toward  them  the  savage  methods 
of  oppression  which  Germany  was  employing  to- 
ward the  conquered  Alsatians.  The  Austrians 
demonstrated  again  the  Teutonic  incapacity  to 
rule  conquered  peoples  except  by  brutal  methods. 
The  principle  by  which  the  English  have  become 
possessed  of  vast  territories  all  over  the  world  has 
been  by  according  justice  to  everybody  and  by 
allowing  religious  liberty  to  every  tribe.  The 
German,  however,  whether  he  comes  from  Prus- 
sia or  from  Austria,  cannot  be  satisfied  unless  he 
has  placed  his  hobnailed  boot  on  the  neck  of  his 


ITALY  AND  THE  ADRIATIC  307 

conquered  victim,  and  when  this  does  not  suffi- 
ciently satisfy  the  Boche,  he  exterminates. 

Accordingly,  when  Austria  found  that  the  Itali- 
ans of  the  unredeemed  sections  were  cherishing 
hopes  of  freeing  themselves,  she  endeavoured  to 
purge  them  of  their  Italianism.  She  tried  to  stop 
the  use  of  the  Italian  language,  not  only  in  the 
schools,  academies,  and  business,  but  in  the  homes, 
and  she  gradually  introduced  many  Slavic  settlers 
into  Istria,  just  as  the  Germans  transplanted  Ger- 
man settlers  into  Alsace.  The  Austrian  police  very 
naturally  treated  with  severity  any  persons  who 
were  suspected  of  having  Italian  propensities. 
There  was  constant  friction,  which  sometimes 
ended  in  bloodshed,  and  of  course  any  Italians  who 
were  unlucky  enough  to  be  brought  into  court 
suffered  the  severest  penalties. 

For  a  while  the  Irrendentist  intrigues  slackened 
to  such  a  point  that  Austria  began  to  think  that 
she  had  outlived  the  danger.  This  slackening 
came  from  two  causes.  Italy  was  engaged  in 
several  larger  matters  at  home  which  took  her  at- 
tention somewhat  away  from  Irredentism,  and 
after  she  joined  the  Triple  Alliance  in  1882  Austria, 
instead  of  acting  more  kindly  toward  the  Irredent- 
ists— who  were  kinsmen  in  spirit  at  least,  to  her 
Italian  partner — presumed  on  that  partnership  to 


3o8  VOLLEYS  FROM  A  NON-COMBATANT 

treat  them  worse.  Latterly,  when  the  Irredentists 
have  renewed  their  protests  and  their  clandestine 
campaigning,  Austria  has  pointed  to  the  census  to 
show  that  after  all  the  Irredentists  do  not  represent 
the  will  of  the  mass  of  the  inhabitants  of  Trieste. 
(The  Germans  have  done  the  same,  in  regard  to 
Alsace.)  By  the  planting  of  German  and  Slavic 
colonists  in  Trieste  and  its  neighbourhood  the  num- 
ber of  Italians  has  proportionately  decreased.  We 
must  remember  also  that  in  many  cases  the  Italians 
who  were  able  quitted  Istria  rather  than  live  under 
Austrian  oppression.  The  exodus  was  not  nearly 
so  great  relatively  as  that  of  the  French  from  Alsace 
but  it  was  great  enough  to  account  for  some  of  the 
increase  in  the  non-Italian  population  of  the  Irre- 
dentist districts. 

But  the  Congress  would  have  as  little  difficulty 
in  assuring  itself  that  the  sentiment  of  the  Trentino 
and  of  the  other  parts  of  Italia  Irredenta  is  gen- 
uinely Italian  as  in  concluding  that  the  protection  of 
Italy  demands  that  she  shall  annex  Italia  Irredenta. 
Austria's  claim  that  the  majority  of  opinion  there 
is  German  and  Slavic  is  based  on  falsehood,  as  any 
foreigner  who  has  visited  those  towns  and  dis- 
tricts can  affirm.  If  the  racial  and  lingual  pre- 
ponderance were  German  and  Slavic,  why  were 
the  manifestos  ordering  the  mobilization  of  the 


ITALY  AND  THE  ADRIATIC  309 

people  in  the  valley  of  the  Trent  and  at  Cortina 
printed  in  Italian,  as  were  probably  those  placarded 
on  the  walls  of  Trieste  ?  I  cannot  assert  the  latter 
as  a  fact,  but  the  former  I  can. 

ii 

The  Italianism  of  the  Trentino  and  of  the  other 
towns  and  valleys  now  held  by  Austria  to  the  north 
of  the  Venetian  plain  is  undisputed;  any  adjust- 
ment that  is  made  after  the  war  must  give  them 
to  Italy.  When  we  proceed  eastward,  however, 
and  consider  the  proper  lot  of  Istria  and  Dalmatia 
there  are  debatable  points.  The  debate  arises 
from  the  fact  that  the  contention  is  no  longer  be- 
tween Italy  and  Austria  but  between  Italy's  desires 
and  those  of  the  Jugoslavs.  For  I  feel,  as  I  have 
said,  that  the  Austrian  Empire — holding  in  unwill- 
ing servitude  Bohemia,  part  of  Poland,  Croatia, 
and  the  other  Slavic  provinces,  and  itself  the  ob- 
sequious servant  and  vassal  of  Germany — must 
cease  to  exist.  Accordingly,  the  duty  of  the  Con- 
gress will  be  to  determine  what  will  be  the  fairest 
arrangement  to  make  to  insure  peace  and  good  will 
among  the  independent  states  which  shall  take  the 
place  of  the  Austrian  tributaries. 

The  race  which  will  border  on  the  Italian  on  the 
east  and  will  have  rival  claims  to  the  freedom  of  the 


3io  VOLLEYS  FROM  A  NON-COMBATANT 

Adriatic  is  the  Slavic.  It  follows,  therefore,  that 
the  Congress  must  give  a  sympathetic  hearing  to 
the  normal  ambitions  of  the  Slavs,  of  the  proposed 
Jugoslav  Federation  which  will  occupy  most  of 
the  northern  half  of  the  Balkan  Peninsula. 

What  will  best  satisfy  the  Balkan  States?  As- 
suming that  they  are  free  and  independent — and 
the  war  will  have  been  fought  in  vain  if  this  assump- 
tion does  not  become  a  reality — what  will  be  their 
demands  as  to  the  Adriatic?  But  first  let  us  en- 
quire which  will  be  the  Balkan  States  after  the  war. 

I  believe  that  Bosnia  and  Herzegovina  ought  to 
be  joined  to  Serbia  which  must  be  strengthened  in 
every  possible  way.  For  Serbia  and  Rumania 
form  the  great  barrier  against  the  Teutons  if  they 
should  attempt  again  to  carry  out  their  Middle 
Europe  project.  The  Serbs  have  fought  valiantly 
and  suffered  horribly  and  they  should  be  thus  com- 
pensated. Not  only  because  it  will  make  them 
strong,  but  because  their  strength  will  protect 
Europe  and  Civilization  against  any  renewal  of  the 
German  piracy.  Rumania,  also,  must  be  increased 
by  the  addition  of  her  natural  lands  and  kindred. 
Bulgaria,  which  has  played  a  most  despicable  role 
in  this  war,  should  be  correspondingly  weakened 
by  taking  from  her  the  territorial  spoils  which  she 
had  already  seized.  If  Montenegro  retains  her 


ITALY  AND  THE  ADRIATIC  311 

independent  identity  she  will  be  too  tiny  to  count 
much  in  any  warlike  concern,  unless  she  has  pos- 
session of  the  magnificent  harbour,  land-locked 
and  spacious,  of  Cattaro  which  is  now  controlled 
by  Austria  on  the  north.  Albania  is  a  puzzle. 
The  Albanians  do  not  seem  to  have  reached  yet 
the  stage  of  political  development  where  they  can 
set  up  and  carry  on  a  fairly  civilized  government. 
It  has  been  suggested  that  the  southern  part  of 
the  country  should  be  under  an  Italian  Protecto- 
rate, while  the  northern  part  should  be  annexed  to 
Serbia.  The  port  of  Valona  is  already  Italian, 
pending  the  final  decisions  after  the  war.  Greece, 
which  is  of  course  not  Slavic,  will  keep  her  territor- 
ies and  probably  gain  some  additions  on  the  north. 
So  far  as  access  to  the  Adriatic  is  concerned,  the 
enlarged  State  of  Serbia  would  most  plausibly 
claim  it;  but  if  Italy  took  all  Dalmatia  this  claim 
could  not  be  satisfied.  The  Italians  may  object 
that  the  distance  between  Trieste  at  the  top  of  the 
Adriatic  and  Valona  at  its  southern  end  is  too 
great  to  be  guarded  by  them  without  more  ports. 
In  that  case  Cattaro,  which  lies  about  halfway 
between  the  two,  seems  to  be  geographically  the 
best  place  for  a  third  Italian  base;  always  provided, 
of  course,  that  a  friendly  arrangement  can  be  made 
with  Montenegro  to  this  purpose.  Friendliness 


3i2  VOLLEYS  FROM  A  NON-COMBATANT 

among  the  various  Slav  people  of  the  Balkans  is 
most  essential  and  the  Congress  should  take  every 
precaution  against  leaving  any  cause  of  hatred, 
jealousy,  or  hostility  to  rankle  among  them. 

The  Balkan  peoples  have  never  yet  had  a  fair 
chance;  until  recently  they  were  under  the  foul  and 
brutal  domination  of  the  Turks.  Having  partially 
freed  themselves  from  this,  Bosnia  and  Herzego- 
vina fell  victims  to  the  deceitful  Austrians  who  acted 
in  collusion  with  the  Germans.  From  1908  to  1914 
Serbia  and  Rumania  lay  under  the  menace  of  the 
Teutons  whom  the  Bulgarians  had  begun  to  con- 
nive with.  Free,  unthreatened  political  life  has 
therefore  been  impossible  to  the  Balkanians,  and 
this  is  precisely  the  life  which  the  Congress  must 
prepare  for  them.  How  far  they  have  all  reached 
capacity  for  self-government  remains  to  be  shown; 
certainly  they  are  not  all  equally  advanced.  But 
under  a  Federation  and  under  a  larger  League  to 
Enforce  Peace,  they  would  have  the  best  conditions 
for  national  development;  at  any  rate,  they  must 
be  given  the  chance. 

To  come  now  to  the  question  of  the  disposition 
to  be  made  of  Istria  and  Dalmatia.  The  Italian 
claim  to  Istria  is  based  on  historic  grounds,  on  the 
alleged  preponderance  of  the  wishes  of  a  majority 
of  the  population,  and  on  the  evident  usefulness 


313 

to  Italy  of  owning  that  province.  Trieste  espe- 
cially, the  great  Istrian  seaport,  must  not  remain  in 
Austrian  hands;  for  Austrian  means  also  German. 
During  more  than  a  generation  it  has  been  the 
principal  port  of  German  commerce  to  the  south. 
How  often  have  the  truculent  German  statesmen 
at  Berlin  called  "Hands  off!"  to  any  suggestion 
that  Trieste  as  a  part  of  Italia  Irredenta  should  be 
transferred  to  Italy!  The  schemes  of  the  German 
World  Empire  took  it  forgranted  that  Trieste  should 
be  to  them  at  the  head  of  the  Adriatic  what  Ham- 
burg was  at  the  mouth  of  the  Elbe.  But  the  ques- 
tion for  the  Congress  is,  whether  it  would  be  better 
for  European  peace  and  development  to  have  the 
Italians  or  the  Jugoslavs  own  Trieste.  There  is  no 
doubt  that,  relatively,  the  Italian  majority  in  Trieste 
has  been  reduced  and  that  the  Slavic  population  has 
correspondingly  increased.  The  Italians  attribute 
this  to  the  common  German  trick  of  bringing  in 
colonists.  The  Slavs,  on  the  other  hand,  assert 
that  the  increase  of  their  people  in  Istria  and  at 
Trieste  came  about  naturally  and  was  not  the  re- 
sult of  Austrian  connivance.  They  say  with 
truth,  also,  that  until  about  twenty  years  ago  the 
Austrians  did  not  suspect  that  the  Slavs  themselves 
were  soon  to  become  a  menace  to  the  Hapsburg 
Empire  in  the  southeast. 


3H  VOLLEYS  FROM  A  NON-COMBATANT 

It  seems  to  me  that  the  simple  thing  for  the  Con- 
gress to  do  is  to  appoint  an  impartial  commission 
to  discover  what  the  status  of  population  in  Istria 
and  Dalmatia  really  is,  and  whether  a  valid  major- 
ity wants  to  be  under  Italian  or  Slavic  government. 
Where  the  population  came  from  and  how  it  hap- 
pens now  to  be  in  either  of  those  provinces  are 
questions  of  the  past;  the  vital  question  touches  the 
future :  Which  race  is  likely  to  be  most  benefited  by 
controlling  those  provinces,  and  so  to  benefit  their 
neighbours  and  the  general  European  community  ? 

The  war  has  taught  with  terrible  emphasis  that, 
as  the  lines  are  now  drawn,  Italy's  protection  in  the 
Adriatic  is  wholly  inadequate.  Arguing  from  the 
need  of  her  protection  only,  Italy  ought  to  have 
Trieste;  so  long  as  Trieste  remains  Austrian,  both 
in  protection  and  in  racial  intentions,  Italy  will  be 
incomplete  and  she  will  be  exposed  to  a  constant 
marine  menace.  This  danger  would  persist  even  if 
Trieste  were  not  owned  by  Austria  but  by  some 
other  Power,  say  that  of  the  Jugoslavs,  if  this  hap- 
pened to  be  hostile  to  Italy. 

What  is  true  of  Trieste  applies  also,  though  per- 
haps less  forcibly,  to  the  status  of  Istria.  Pola,  the 
port  at  the  southern  tip  of  the  Istrian  Peninsula, 
is  the  Austrian  arsenal,  and  after  the  Teutonic 
navies  were  driven  from  the  seas  in  August,  1914, 


ITALY  AND  THE  ADRIATIC  315 

it  was  the  place  from  which  submarines  were  fitted 
out,  and  to  which  they  scurried  for  shelter.  We 
have  good  reason  to  suspect  that  many  of  the 
U-boats  which  sailed  thence  to  harry  the  Italian 
seacoast,  to  sink  Italian  ships  in  the  Adriatic,  and 
to  work  havoc  on  all  Allied  and  neutral  ships  in 
the  Mediterranean,  were  German  ships,  although 
during  the  first  two  years  of  the  war  Germany  was 
at  peace  with  Italy.  Pola  was  likewise  the  base 
of  the  Austrian  airplanes  which  operated  along  the 
Adriatic,  and  many  of  these,  too,  were  German. 
This  war,  by  revealing  the  importance  of  the  sub- 
marine and  the  airplane,  has  led  us  to  change 
radically  our  views  as  to  the  protection  from 
attack  which  a  country  requires,  and  this  is 
particularly  true  of  the  countries  bordering  on 
the  Adriatic. 

Perhaps  I  ought  to  state  more  definitely  who  the 
Jugoslavs — or  as  they  are  called  in  some  sections 
the  Slovenes — are,  and  what  is  their  racial  aspira- 
tion. They  are  a  branch  of  the  great  Slavic  race 
occupying  the  Slovenian  provinces  of  Austria,  be- 
sides Croatia,  Dalmatia,  Bosnia,  Herzegovina, 
Montenegro,  Serbia,  and  southern  Hungary. 
Most  of  these  districts  have  been  unwilling  vassals 
of  Austria  and  they  have  looked  forward  for  many 
years  to  freeing  themselves  and  constituting  a  large 


3i6  VOLLEYS  FROM  A  NON-COMBATANT 

independent  Slavic  State,  to  which  the  name  Jugo- 
slavia has  recently  been  attached. 

Now  these  Jugoslavs  do  not  listen  enthusiasti- 
cally to  the  suggestion  that  they  should  emancipate 
themselves  from  the  Hapsburgs  in  Istria  and  Dal- 
matia  only  to  become  subjects  of  Italy.  According 
to  their  figures  they  actually  outnumber  the  Ital- 
ians in  those  provinces,  and  they  claim  that  the 
new  boundary  should  be  drawn  to  protect  them. 
In  the  three-cornered  competition  which  has  gone 
on  among  the  (German)  Austrians,  Italians,  and 
Slovenes,  the  Jugoslavs  assert  that  the  Italians 
have  been  played  against  them.  The  Congress 
must  settle  the  matter  after  having  a  report  from 
an  impartial  commission,  which  should  visit  the 
disputed  territory  and  hear  evidence  from  both 
sides.  If  the  protection  of  Italy  be  the  main  con- 
sideration, Istria  and  Trieste  ought  to  be  assigned 
to  her.  Trieste  without  Istria  would  probably 
wither;  because  we  cannot  predict  how  much  Aus- 
trian and  German  commerce  would  flow  through 
that  city  if  it  were  held  by  the  Italians.  On  the 
other  hand,  if  the  Jugoslavs  expect  to  be  a  mari- 
time people,  and  I  have  grave  doubts  whether 
they  could  be  one,  they  would  naturally  want 
Trieste. 

The  possession  of  Dalmatia  and  its  trade  would 


ITALY  AND  THE  ADRIATIC  317 

not  compensate  Italy  for  the  continous  ill-will 
and  probable  open  hostility  of  its  Slavic  inhabi- 
tants. If  Italy  really  needed  a  port  between 
Trieste  and  Valona,  Ragusa  would  seem  to  be  the 
best  for  her,  unless  she  could  persuade  the  King  of 
Montenegro  to  let  her  have  Cattaro;  but  that  is 
very  doubtful.  The  harbour  of  Cattaro  would 
serve  equally  well  as  a  naval  station  and  for  com- 
merce, but  it  affords  Montenegro  its  only  access  to 
the  sea. 

Let  us  assume  that  Italy  requires  for  defensive 
and  strategic  purposes,  Trieste  and  Pola  at  the 
north  and  Valona,  which  will  enable  her  to  close 
the  Adriatic  at  its  narrowest  point,  at  the  south. 
Does  she  need  also  the  Dalmatian  Littoral  for  her 
protection?  I  hardly  think  so.  The  coast  of 
Dalmatia  is  a  network  of  inlets  and  small  islands 
with  intricate  passages  connecting  them,  all  of 
which  form  a  most  favourable  field  in  which  sub- 
marines can  hide  and  from  which  they  can  dart 
forth  to  damage  the  Italian  towns  opposite  and 
Italian  commerce  wherever  they  find  it.  With 
Valona,  however,  Italy  ought  to  be  able  to  protect 
herself  from  these  pests,  especially  if  she  controls 
Ragusa  or  Durazzo  part  way  up  the  coast. 

For  commerce  the  Jugoslavs  would  have  Fiume, 
the  New  Port  of  which  ought  to  satisfy  all  their 


318   VOLLEYS  FROM  A  NON-COMBATANT 

needs  for  many  years  to  come.  The  population 
of  Dalmatia  is  mixed  Italian  and  Slavic.  The 
Jugoslavs  claim  that  the  Italians  wish  to  possess 
it,  not  for  strategic  purposes,  but  for  commercial; 
in  order  that  through  Dalmatia  they  may  flood 
Jugoslavia  with  Italian  manufactures.  This  mat- 
ter, as  I  have  said,  ought  to  be  referred  to  an  im- 
partial commission. 

On  the  whole,  I  am  inclined  to  doubt  the  ad- 
visability of  restoring  Dalmatia  to  Italy.  At 
most,  it  is  a  mere  shelf  of  land  which  tapers  off 
to  a  point  just  below  Ragusa.  It  shuts  off  the 
country  to  the  east  of  it  from  the  Adriatic;  that 
country  will  be  Serbia  or  Jugoslavia  which  will 
crave  direct  access  to  the  sea.  A  high  mountain 
ridge,  however,  separates  the  hinterland  from 
Dalmatia.  If  the  separation  were  complete,  if 
the  mountains  were  impassable,  it  might  be  well 
to  regard  Dalmatia  as  a  projection  from  Istria, 
which  we  have  assumed  to  be  Italian,  down  to 
Ragusa,  and  so  to  include  it  among  the  lands  to 
be  assigned  to  Italy.  But  the  mountains  are  not 
impassable  and  the  Slavic  peoples  to  the  east  of 
them  will  want  to  reach  the  Adriatic,  and  will  be 
likely  to  resent  being  hemmed  in  by  Italians  in 
Dalmatia.  Unless  the  Dalmatians  clamour  by 
overwhelming  majority  to  be  united  with  the 


ITALY  AND  THE  ADRIATIC  319 

Italians,  I  fear  that  there  will  be  perpetual  feuds 
and  misunderstandings.  It  may  not  be  amiss  to 
recall  that  Zara,  the  richest  of  the  Dalmatian 
cities,  was  a  dependency  of  the  Venetian  Republic 
for  nearly  eight  centuries,  during  much  of  which 
time  it  was  in  a  state  of  rebellion.  Undoubtedly 
many  of  its  revolutions  were  caused  by  the 
Hungarians,  who  wished  to  get  possession  of  it 
and  had  a  considerable  faction  in  the  city;  but 
may  not  something  similar  happen  again  if  the  free 
Slavic  States  possess  the  hinterland  and  covet  also 
the  water  front  that  is  the  Dalmatian  coast  ? 

It  is  to  save  Italy  from  such  complications 
which  would  inevitably  lead  to  wars  that  I  would 
withhold  Dalmatia  from  her.  The  worries  and 
expense  caused  by  unwilling  colonies  almost  al- 
ways exceed  any  profit  which  they  may  bring 
to  their  owners.  Above  all,  the  Congress  which 
will  remake  Europe  after  the  war  will  be  inspired 
by  the  principle  that  no  people  shall  be  held  in 
bondage  against  its  will  by  a  stronger  people. 
In  some  cases  geography  will  no  doubt  clash  with 
this  principle.  That  Ireland  should  become  a 
State  independent  of  Great  Britain  seems  to  me, 
geographically,  to  be  as  unreasonable  as  that  Long 
Island  should  be  established  as  an  independent 
nation.  Only  far  greater  tangles  and  strife  could 


320  VOLLEYS  FROM  A  NON-COMBATANT 

spring  from  such  an  arrangement.  In  the  Balkans 
there  are  already  too  many  seeds  of  discord — not 
only  the  memories  and  recriminations  based  on 
the  recent  wars,  but  the  instinctive  animosities  of 
utterly  different  races  and  tribes  and  the  mutually 
hostile  religions.  No  new  firebrand  should  be  added. 
As  the  purpose  of  the  Congress  will  be  to  con- 
trive the  combination  which  seems  the  most 
likely  to  make  peace  instead  of  war  the  permanent 
condition  and  aim  of  civilized  men,  it  will  of 
course  take  from  the  nations  which  have  caused 
the  Atrocious  War  their  power  for  harm.  It  will 
deprive  Germany,  the  arch  robber,  of  her  booty; 
it  will  break  up  Austria;  it  will  reduce  their  pal} 
Bulgaria,  small,  rapacious,  and  faithless.  Turkey, 
which  has  too  long  outstayed  her  time  in  Europe, 
and  is  the  same  bloodthirsty,  corrupt,  unchanging 
and  unchanged  Turkey  everywhere,  must  be  sent 
out  of  Europe  into  Asia  forever.  Old  peoples 
will  be  made  new  by  the  putting  into  practice  of 
principles  which  are  neither  old  nor  new,  but 
eternal.  And  new  peoples  will  stride  forth  into 
noble  and  useful  activities  under  the  guidance 
of  Freedom  and  Brotherhood.  The  world  will 
no  longer  be  deceived  by  the  hideous  Prussian 
doctrine  that  the  good  of  all  peoples  must  be 
sacrificed  to  the  supremacy  of  one  and  that  one, 


ITALY  AND  THE  ADRIATIC  321 

Prussia  under  the  HohenzoIIerns.  It  will  under- 
stand, on  the  contrary,  that  if  a  single  people 
is  wronged  or  crippled  or  enslaved,  all  must 
suffer,  just  as  a  withered  arm,  or  an  ailing  heart, 
takes  away  from  the  whole  vigour  of  a  man.  Under 
the  happier  conditions  we  are  moving  toward,  Italy 
will  be  a  great  gainer,  and  whatever  adds  to  the 
fullness  of  her  life  will  be  a  gain  for  the  world. 

I  repeat,  therefore,  that  the  considerations 
which  will  come  before  the  Congress  touching 
the  future  of  Istria  and  Dalmatia  concern  two 
nations  only,  Italy  and  the  Jugoslavs.  I  do 
not  include  Austria  because  I  do  not  expect  that 
she  will  be  left  with  power  enough  to  harm  these 
two.  Our  concern  must  be,  therefore,  to  make 
the  most  mutually  amicable  arrangement  be- 
tween Italy  and  the  Jugoslavs;  and  not  amicable 
at  the  moment  only,  but  best  for  the  lasting  wel- 
fare and  progress  of  them  both.  The  importance 
to  the  world  of  a  strengthened  Italy  does  not  need 
to  be  argued.  I  believe,  also,  that  the  Jugoslavs, 
if  given  a  fair  chance  and  honourable  treatment, 
will  make  a  valuable  contribution  to  Civilization. 
The  Slavs  are  coming  on;  they  have  qualities 
possessed  by  no  other  race;  they  should  be  en- 
couraged, not  thwarted.  Therefore,  if  the  popula- 
tion of  Dalmatia  is,  as  they  affirm,  preponderantly 


322  VOLLEYS  FROM  A  NON-COMBATANT 

Slavic,  both  justice  and  prudence  demand  that 
Dalmatia  be  given  to  them. 

Being  a  well-wisher  of  Italy  I  could  never  ap- 
prove of  any  arrangement  which  seemed  destined 
to  bring  harm  to  her.  Being  also  opposed  to 
Imperialism,  based  not  on  natural  development 
but  on  greed  or  ambition,  I  should  look  with 
foreboding  if  she  took  Dalmatia  only  from  im- 
perialistic motives.  If  the  Dalmatians  genuinely 
desire  to  become  politically  Italians,  then  let 
the  union  be  made  unless  it  would  be  of  still 
greater  benefit  and  importance  to  the  general 
welfare  to  have  the  Jugoslavs  possess  Dalmatia. 
No  matter  how  small  a  province  may  be,  if  it  is 
hostile,  it  will  be  as  a  thorn  in  the  side  of  its 
master.  Even  great  empires  have  been  exhausted 
by  the  long  strain  of  conflict  with  a  stubborn 
dependency.  Italy  should  conserve  her  vitality  and 
not  waste  on  adventures  abroad  the  vigour  which 
she  ought  to  apply  to  honest  growth  at  home. 
So  that  I  would  not  have  her  pursue  haphazard 
enterprises  in  the  Balkans  or  anywhere  else. 

I  have  said  nothing  about  Italy's  indemnity. 
That,  of  course,  will  be  proportional  to  her  losses. 


END 


THE  COUNTRY  LIFE  PRESS,  GARDEN  CITY,  N.  Y. 


UC  SOUTHERN  REGIONAL  LIBRARY  FACILITY 


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